Histogram analysis for smartphone-based rapid hematocrit determination

Biomed Opt Express. 2017 Jun 16;8(7):3317-3328. doi: 10.1364/BOE.8.003317. eCollection 2017 Jul 1.

Abstract

A novel and rapid analysis technique using histogram has been proposed for the colorimetric quantification of blood hematocrits. A smartphone-based "Histogram" app for the detection of hematocrits has been developed integrating the smartphone embedded camera with a microfluidic chip via a custom-made optical platform. The developed histogram analysis shows its effectiveness in the automatic detection of sample channel including auto-calibration and can analyze the single-channel as well as multi-channel images. Furthermore, the analyzing method is advantageous to the quantification of blood-hematocrit both in the equal and varying optical conditions. The rapid determination of blood hematocrits carries enormous information regarding physiological disorders, and the use of such reproducible, cost-effective, and standard techniques may effectively help with the diagnosis and prevention of a number of human diseases.

Keywords: (040.1880) Detection; (100.2960) Image analysis; (110.0110) Imaging systems; (170.1610) Clinical applications; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging.