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

Ann-Kathrin Reichenwallner; Esma Vurmaz; Kristina Battis; Laura Handl; Helin Üstün; Tivadar Mach; Gabriele Hörnig; Jan Lipfert; Lukas Richter

doi:10.3390/mi12040358

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

Micromachines (Basel). 2021 Mar 26;12(4):358. doi: 10.3390/mi12040358.

Authors

Ann-Kathrin Reichenwallner^{1

2}, Esma Vurmaz¹, Kristina Battis¹, Laura Handl¹, Helin Üstün¹, Tivadar Mach¹, Gabriele Hörnig³, Jan Lipfert², Lukas Richter¹

Affiliations

¹ Technologies for Precision Medicine, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Günther-Scharowsky-Str. 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
² Department of Physics and Center for Nanoscience, LMU Munich, Amalienstr. 54, 80799 Munich, Germany.
³ Product Lifecycle Management, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Röntgenstr. 19-21, 95478 Kemnath, Germany.

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: RBC counting; blood analysis; cellular hemoglobin concentration; cellular volume; digital holographic microscopy; hydrodynamic focusing; microfluidics.