Validation study toward measuring the mechanical properties of blood clots using resonant acoustic spectroscopy with optical vibrometry.

Clot elastic modulus (CEM) has recently been shown to correlate with various hemostatic and thrombotic disorders and may be an important diagnostic parameter in cardiovascular diseases. Current methods of CEM measurement lack repeatability and require large sample volume. We present a novel method named resonant acoustic spectroscopy with optical vibrometry (RASOV) that has the potential to assess CEM with higher accuracy and speed, and lower sample volume. To validate RASOV, we measured the acoustic spectrum of agarose gel with varied concentrations in open-faced rectangular wells. Results showed a linear relationship between the natural resonant frequency and agarose content within a concentration range of 4 to 12 mg/mL. Furthermore, we observed that the resonant frequencies decrease with increasing transducer mass. As a highly accurate, resonance-based method, RASOV has great potential for biomechanical properties measurement, especially for human blood.