System and method for histological tissue specimen processing

#This application claims priority to Australian Provisional Patent Application No. 2003905301, filed 29 Sep. 2003 entitled “System and Method for Histological Tissue Specimen Processing” and, the specification thereof is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety and for all purposes.

#The present invention relates to a system and method for processing histological tissue specimens. In one form the invention relates to a system and method for tissue processing with the use of an automated tissue processor as disclosed in International Patent Application No PCT/AU02/01337, publication No WO 03/029845 titled “Histological Tissue Specimen Treatment” in the name of the present applicant and, it will be convenient to hereinafter describe the invention in relation to the dual retort tissue processor disclosed in that application. It should be appreciated, however, that the invention is not limited to that application, only. For example, in other forms the present invention may be applicable to tissue processors that are different from that disclosed in WO 03/029845, such as for example, tissue processors comprising a single retort.

#Throughout this specification the use of the word “inventor” in singular form may be taken as reference to one (singular) or all (plural) inventors of the present invention.

#Further disclosure, objects, advantages and aspects of the present invention will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the following written description of preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limiting to the scope of the present invention, and in which:

#FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic block diagram of a tissue processor operating according to a first embodiment of the invention and showing the basic elements of a tissue processor;

#FIG. 2 is a more comprehensive schematic block diagram of a tissue processor of FIG. 1 showing air and reagent lines;

#The present invention has particular application in the operation of a tissue processor for processing tissue samples for histological analysis, such as that described in International PCT Application No. PCT/AU02/01337, publication No. WO 03/029845, titled; “Histological Tissue Specimen Treatment”, published 10 Apr. 2003 and filed by the present applicant. In its preferred form, the present invention may be utilised as a method and means for managing resources and scheduling protocols in the operation of a tissue processor such as disclosed in WO 03/029845 and, it will be convenient to hereinafter describe the invention in relation to the tissue processor disclosed in that application. It should be appreciated, however, that embodiments of the present invention are not limited to that particular application, only.

#The following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention provide logical workflows, which in turn illustrate the functionality of an instrument, such as that described in WO 03/029845, operating in accordance with a preferred method of the present invention. Embodiments of such an instrument may have one rotary valve, two retorts, four wax chambers and a total of 22 valves. Furthermore, for example, the present invention has enabled a minimal number of shared reagent resources to be used, as in the preferred embodiments. As such, the instrument described in the preferred embodiments has 16 shared reagent stations between two retorts. This number is only three more reagent stations than required in the prior art for a single retort processor. Up to this point the management of resources dictated that up to 26 reagent stations may have been necessary to satisfy the requirements of two individual instruments operating with tissue processing protocols in a single retort each.

#In the following description, device workflows that may be considered as lower level workflows, for example “fill” and “drain” retort, are actions that would be well understood by the person skilled in the art and the exact methodologies employed in carrying out these actions stem from the protocol scheduling disclosed herein. These are the basic actions that enable an instrument to carry out any higher level operation such as a protocol schedule. Instrument workflows may be higher level workflows that utilise some of the device workflows. Some examples of the higher level flows are cleaning protocols, wax cleaning, and remote drain. The workflows may be represented using basic unified modelling language flowcharts.