Patent ID: 7542131

Claim:
An instrument for measuring blood cell deformability comprising: a disposable blood test kit ( 20 ) for directly containing the blood sample, a light emitting unit ( 10 ) disposed above said disposable blood test kit ( 20 ), a measurement unit ( 30 ) for measuring the blood cell deformability, said disposable blood test kit ( 20 ) comprises a blood sample pot ( 21 ) for containing the blood sample, a slit channel ( 22 ) for flowing the blood sample by a pressure difference, and a waste blood pot ( 23 ) for collecting the tested blood sample, said measurement unit ( 30 ) comprises a differential pressure generator ( 33 ), which is connected to the disposable blood test kit ( 20 ) through a connecting tube and a valve ( 32 ) for generating the pressure difference between the blood sample pot ( 21 ) and waste blood pot ( 23 ), a pressure gauge ( 34 ) connected to the differential pressure generator ( 33 ) and the disposable blood test kit ( 20 ) for measuring the pressure difference, a means for projecting the diffracted images of the blood cell, an image capturing unit ( 35 ) for capturing the diffracted images, a control unit ( 36 ) for calculating the blood cell deformability and variation of the shearing force according to the blood cell deformation on time based data received from the pressure gauge ( 34 ) and the image capturing unit ( 35 ), an output unit ( 37 ) for printing the calculated information on the sheet or displaying on an LCD screen, and a memory unit ( 38 ) for storing the calculated information and images, wherein said control unit ( 36 ) further calculates a shearing stress(π) as a function of time, which is calculated and stored by a computer analyses based on time data of pressure measurements, alternatively, said shearing stress (π) can be determined according to pre-calculated data of pressure without applying the instantly measured pressure data, and the diffracted images of the blood cells captured by the image-capturing unit ( 35 ) are analyzed by ellipse curve-fitting computer software to determined a length (L) and a width (W) of analyzed elliptic images, and calculated a Deformation Index (DI) for determining the blood cell deformability and the shearing stress (π) as a function of time.