In vitro hematocrit measurement using spectrally encoded flow cytometry.

Measuring key physiological parameters of small blood samples extracted from patients could be useful for real-time clinical diagnosis at the point of care. An important parameter required from all blood tests is the blood hematocrit, a measure of the fractional volume occupied by the red cells within the blood. In this work, we present a method for in vitro evaluation of hematocrit based on the data acquired using spectrally encoded flow cytometry. Analysis of the reflectance confocal images of blood within a flow chamber resulted in an error as low as 1.7% in the measured hematocrit. The technique could be used as part of an in vitro diagnostic system that measures important blood parameters at the point of care.