Evaluation method of the degree of red blood cell aggregation considering ultrasonic propagation attenuation by analyzing ultrasonic backscattering properties

Purpose: Red blood cell (RBC) aggregation is one of the main factors that determines blood viscosity and an important indicator for evaluating blood properties. As a noninvasive and quantitative method for diagnosing blood properties, our research group estimated the size of RBC aggregates by fitting the scattered power spectrum from the blood vessel lumen with the theoretical scattering characteristics to evaluate the degree of RBC aggregation. However, it was assumed that the propagation attenuation of ultrasound in the vascular lumen was the same regardless of whether RBCs were aggregated or not, which caused systematic errors in the estimated size. Methods: To improve the size estimation accuracy, we calculated and corrected the attenuation of the blood vessel lumen during RBC aggregation and non-aggregation. The attenuation in the blood vessel lumen was calculated with the spectra acquired from two different depths. Results: In the basic experiments using microparticles, the estimation accuracy decreased as the concentration increased in the case of the conventional method, but the estimated size tended to approach the true size irrespective of the concentration, removing the propagation attenuation component with the proposed method. In the in vivo experiment on the human hand dorsal vein, the size was estimated to be larger during RBC aggregation and smaller during non-aggregation using the proposed method. Conclusion: These results suggest that the proposed method can provide precise size estimation by considering the propagation attenuation component regardless of differences in blood conditions such as RBC concentration and degree of aggregation.