Optical assessment of alterations of microrheologic and microcirculation parameters in cardiovascular diseases.

In this work, we compare the blood aggregation parameters measured in vitro by laser aggregometry and optical trapping techniques in blood samples with the parameters of blood rheology measured in vivo by digital capillaroscopy in the nail bed capillaries of patients suffering from the hypertension and coronary heart disease. We show that the alterations of the parameters measured in vivo and in vitro for patients with different stages of these diseases are interrelated. Good agreement between the results obtained with different techniques, and their applicability for the diagnostics of abnormalities of rheological properties of blood are demonstrated.