Fractal Dimensions in Red Blood Cells

Authors: ALINA RAPA, SERVILIA OANCEA, DORINA CREANGA

Abstract: We studied the erythrocyte aggregability for different animals using fractal analysis. Red blood cell aggregation is an important component of whole blood viscosity and is the major cause of the non-Newtonian flow properties of blood. To understand the aggregation process many models have been proposed in the literature. Since aggregates formed by aggregation have a fractal structure, mathematical descriptions of their irregular structure can be obtained using fractal geometry. For this purpose, blood samples were prepared from cows, sheep, rabbits, roosters, horses and humans by diluting 1:200 and mixing for 3 min in adequate reactives. A Turk room, microscope system and computer acquisition system (frame-grabber or video blaster) were used to register and analyse images of cell aggregates. In the case of the blood from cows, sheep, rabbits and roosters no aggregation phenomenon was observed in the microscope slides. However, in the case of horses and humans, erythrocyte aggregates were identified and fractal analysis was carried out by means of a modified box counting method. Higher fractal dimension values were found for horse in comparison to human samples. The results obtained suggest that higher fractal dimensions correspond to higher aggregability, meaning higher complexity of cells’ properties of interaction with each other. These results are concordant with literature data. We conclude that horses and humans have more complex structures of blood cells than the other species in this study.

Keywords: Red blood cell aggregation, fractal analysis, HarFA

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