The reflection and transmission of coherent light from a biological system can yield information about its condition. In the case of blood exposed to the air, there is a change in the properties of the speckle patterns observed in the coagulation process. This can be studied by means of the rate of temporal variation, the contrast, and also the fractality of patterns. The fractality of the speckle pattern can be investigated by a fractal dimension, which can quantify a level of the complexity of platelet aggregation structure and a fibrin network formed in the process of blood coagulation. In addition, dynamic characteristics of a movement in blood also contain information on the progress of the coagulation process. Fractality and dynamic characteristics are investigated simultaneously for speckle patterns observed in the coagulation process of stored horse blood. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed method for detecting hemolysis and formation of platelet aggregation structure and the fibrin network during the coagulation process.
Keywords: blood coagulation; fractal dimension; image processing; speckle imaging.