Misshapen Erythrocytes Detected by Light Scattering

A technique allows doctors to ascertain the healthy shape of red blood cells in just a few seconds by analyzing the light scattered off hundreds of cells at a time.

The method called Fourier Transform Light Scattering (FTLS) was developed on individual red blood cells (RBCs), where the pattern changed significantly with the diameter and dimple width of the cells.


Scientists at the University of Illinois (UIUC; Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA) pioneered the technique that will allow physicians to ascertain whether red blood cells have healthy shapes or are distorted. This is accomplished by measuring the scattered light from hundreds of cells simultaneously. The theory was that if light was shone on a sample of blood and analyzed, the light scattering off that sample, would yield a pattern, a sort of signature produced by the way light interacts with itself in a three-dimensional space. That pattern would be different from the pattern collected from blood containing mostly misshapen cells.

These light-cell interactions were too complicated to analyze with the usual mathematical tools The UIUC team applied the Born approximation to their findings and calculated what the appropriate scattering signature for healthy cells should be. The investigators then used this new healthy cell signature to identify the correct morphology of cells in a blood smear. The novel technique may allow for faster, accurate blood tests that could help doctors diagnose various types of anemia, and could be especially useful in resource-poor areas of the world.

A healthy erythrocyte looks like a disc with a depression, called a dimple, in the top and bottom. Stressed RBCs often have deeper dimples than healthy ones, giving the cells a deflated look; others may have shallow dimples or no dimples at all. Misshapen RBCs are a sign of serious illnesses, such as malaria and sickle cell anemia. Until recently, the only way to assess whether a person's erythrocytes were the correct shape was to look at them individually under a microscope, a time-consuming process for pathologists. The study was published in October 2011 in the journal Biomedical Optics Express.

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