GENDER, MENSTRUAL-CYCLE, ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVES AND RED-BLOOD-CELL DEFORMABILITY IN HEALTHY ADULT SUBJECTS

Gender, menstrual cycle and oral contraceptives may have influence on mechanical properties of Red Blood Cell (RBC) and particularly on RBC deformability. So cell transit parameters have been assessed by filtra tion with the Cell Transit Analyser (CTA) for a large healthy adult po pulation (seventy-nine males and one-hundred-fifteen females). The CTA provides the distribution of cell transit times of 5000 red blood cel ls, the mean transit time of the population and different percentiles such as p50, p75, p90 and p95. No effect of oral contraceptives was ro und. Nevertheless, influence of sex and menstrual cycle were demonstra ted. A significant increase of the filtration parameters measured in t he female population with respect to the male population and during me nstruation, preovulation and post-ovulation periods was observed. Duri ng ovulation, the CTA parameters are comparable to the same parameters found in males.