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Towards Non-Invasive White Blood Cell Count in Humans

Bagramyan, A.; Wu, J. W.; Mirsanaye, K.; Alt, C.; Lin, C. P.

2024-11-30 hematology
10.1101/2024.11.26.24314245 medRxiv
Show abstract

Despite rapid advances in diagnostic and imaging technologies, a method for noninvasive monitoring of the immune system does not exist. The standard white blood cell count (WBCC), a key clinical measure for assessing patients health, requires drawing blood, which poses inherent risks for secondary infection and anemia in vulnerable patient populations. In addition, the specialized equipment, expertise, and infrastructure are not always available in resource-poor settings. Here we present a method for noninvasive and label-free WBCC by imaging human oral mucosa with a miniaturized oblique back-illumination microscope (mOBM). In a pilot study involving 34 healthy subjects, we validated our systems ability to detect and quantify circulating leukocytes and compared our image-based WBCC to standard laboratory measurements. The ability to perform noninvasive WBCC will enable real-time assessment of the immune status during infection and inflammation or in response to therapeutic intervention without repetitive blood sampling.

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