. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Sep 30.

Published in final edited form as: Nat Protoc. 2014 Feb 27;9(3):694–710. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2014.044

Table 1.

Troubleshooting

Step	Problem	Possible Reason	Solution
12	Air bubble trapped in CTC-iChip1 lane	Bubbles in buffer	Clamp CTC-iChip1-to-CTC-iChip2 tubing, increase pressure to 140 kPa (20 psi) and tap on CTC-iChip1 to flush out bubbles via waste outlet
14	Air bubble trapped in CTC-iChip2 channel	Bubbles in buffer	Unclamp CTC-iChip1-to-CTC-iChip2 tubing, press gently to guide the bubbles out from the outlets
34	Blood level rises or blood not flowing through the system	Pressure problem	Make sure air pressure # 2 is on
35	RBC carryover to CTC-iChip2	Pressure or syringe pump problem	Check pressure and syringe pump settings, confirm that there is no leak
35	Majority of CTC-iChip1 lanes blocked	Blood has large aggregates	Terminate the run
37	Bubbles get into CTC-iChip1	Blood sample is finished, blood inlet not clamped on time	Stop the run