Laser ektacytometry and evaluation of statistical characteristics of inhomogeneous ensembles of red blood cells

- Theoretical analysis of diffraction patterns in laser ektacytometer is performed.
- Relations between intensity distribution and shape parameters of RBC are found.
- RBC deformability distribution can be calculated from the diffraction pattern.
- Experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical conclusions.

The paper is devoted to development of the laser ektacytometry technique for evaluation of the statistical characteristics of inhomogeneous ensembles of red blood cells (RBCs). We have analyzed theoretically laser beam scattering by the inhomogeneous ensembles of elliptical discs, modeling red blood cells in the ektacytometer. The analysis shows that the laser ektacytometry technique allows for quantitative evaluation of such population characteristics of RBCs as the cells mean shape, the cells deformability variance and asymmetry of the cells distribution in the deformability. Moreover, we show that the deformability distribution itself can be retrieved by solving a specific Fredholm integral equation of the first kind. At this stage we do not take into account the scatter in the RBC sizes.