Optical Investigation of Individual Red Blood Cells for Determining Cell Count and Cellular Hemoglobin Concentration in a Microfluidic Channel

Abstract

We demonstrate a blood analysis routine by observing red blood cells through light and digital holographic microscopy in a microfluidic channel. With this setup a determination of red blood cell (RBC) concentration, the mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and corpuscular hemoglobin concentration mean (CHCM) is feasible. Cell count variations in between measurements differed by 2.47% with a deviation of −0.26×106 μL to the reference value obtained from the Siemens ADVIA 2120i. Measured MCV values varied by 2.25% and CHCM values by 3.78% compared to the reference ADVIA measurement. Our results suggest that the combination of optical analysis with microfluidics handling provides a promising new approach to red blood cell counts.

Keywords

• blood analysis
• RBC counting
• cellular hemoglobin concentration
• cellular volume
• microfluidics
• hydrodynamic focusing