Currently it takes expensive equipment and considerable time to do blood coagulation studies. Being able to quickly determine the coagulation of blood would help clinicians make effective decisions and so prevent embolism, thrombosis, extensive bleeding, and other life threatening conditions.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have reported in journal Biomedical Optics Express the development of a new light-based technology that accurately detects the clotting properties of blood within minutes after sampling. The team used a laser to illuminate the blood sample and watched the changing reflecting speckle pattern produced. As the blood coagulates, the pattern changes and becomes less active. By detecting how the speckle pattern changes, a measure of blood’s coagulation is derived.
Here a couple videos showing off the technology, with the first one displaying the speckle pattern of whole, free moving blood, while the second is that generated 10 minutes later, and shows a very different pattern due to the changed consistency of the blood sample:
Study: Assessing blood coagulation status with laser speckle rheology…