Patent ID: 8345227

Claim:
A method of determining a hemoglobin content value of a red blood cell, the method comprising: (a) illuminating the cell with incident light at a plurality of illumination wavelengths; (b) obtaining at least one two-dimensional image of the cell corresponding to each illumination wavelength; (c) for each illumination wavelength, determining a mean optical density and a maximum optical density for the cell; (d) determining an area of the cell; (e) for each illumination wavelength, determining a volume of the cell based on the area of the cell and the mean optical density and maximum optical density for the cell corresponding to the illumination wavelength; (f) for each illumination wavelength, determining an integrated optical density for the cell based on the area of the cell and the mean optical density for the cell corresponding to the illumination wavelength; and (g) determining the hemoglobin content value of the cell based on a weighted combination of the area of the cell, the volumes of the cell corresponding to each of the illumination wavelengths, and the integrated optical densities for the cell corresponding to each of the illumination wavelengths.