ASSESSMENT OF RED-BLOOD-CELL DEFORMABILITY IN HEALTHY ADULT SUBJECTS - INFLUENCE OF SEX, AGE, CIGARETTE-SMOKING, MENSTRUAL-CYCLE AND ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVES

To assess the possible influence of age, gender, cigarette smoking, me nstrual cycle and oral contraceptives on red blood cell (RBC) deformab ility, cell transit parameters for one-hundred-ninety-four healthy adu lt subjects (seventy-nine males and one-hundred-fiveteen females) have been measured by filtration with the Cell Transit Analyser (CTA). The CTA provides the distribution of cell transit times of 5000 red blood cells, the mean transit time <tau> of the RBC population and differen t percentiles such as p50, p75, p90 and p95. First, correlations betwe en <tau> and mean cell volume (MCV) were calculated for the entire pop ulation. Secondly, the influence of sex, age, cigarette smoking, menst rual cycle and oral contraceptives on the RBC mean transit time was ev aluated. For RBC with 80 fl < MCV < 98 fl, a very tight correlation be tween <tau> and MCV was found (r = 0.41; p < 0.001). No effect of age, cigarette smoking and oral contraceptives was found. Nevertheless, in fluence of sex and menstrual cycle were demonstrated. A significant in crease of the CTA parameters measured in the female population with re spect to the male population and during menstruation, preovulation and post-ovulation periods was observed. During ovulation, the CTA parame ters are comparable to the same parameters in males.