Estimate of red-cell deformability and plasma viscosity based on flow curve

A new estimation method of clinical blood indices based on the flow charact eristics of unadjusted whole blood is proposed, such as red-cell deformabil ity and plasma viscosity. Parameter values of Bingham and power law models were calculated based on the measured flow characteristics. Red-cell deform ability was measured by the method of laser diffractometry. The clinical in dices were related with the non-Newtonian model parameters by a feedforward neural network (NN). Inputs of the NN are the parameter values and hematoc rit. Outputs are red-cell deformability and plasma viscosity. It was verifi ed that estimated values agreed well with those measured values after suffi cient learning. By applying this method to 20 healthy persons, it was confi rmed that the estimated values by NN were within normal range. According to these experimental results, this estimation method cart be applied to clin ical use.