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Haemorheology: Rheometric Characterisation and Direct
Imaging of Red Blood Cells under Shear Flows G.L. Ngow †1 , Z.C..Lan †1 , A.A. Mangoni 2 , S.H.D. Jackson 2 , X.F. Yuan 1 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, King’s College London, London (UK). 2 Clinical Age Research Unit, Department of Health Care of the Elderly, GKT School of Medicine, King’s College London, London (UK) |
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| Human blood exhibit pronounced viscoelastic behaviour caused by primarily the structural element, red blood cell (RBC) - its aggregation and deformability. One of the central tasks in haemorheology is to quantitatively characterise constitutive relationships of blood, which must account for the structure evolution of RBC under flow conditions. As the first step toward this goal, we carried out rheometric characterisation for blood samples from 5 healthy subjects and also closely examined the direct correlation between hemorheological properties and RBC aggregation. These results will serve as baseline data for further studying of haemorheological factors in hypertension. It has been widely recognised that systemic arterial blood pressure depends on both cardiac output and on total peripheral resistance [1-3]. The peripheral resistance is affected by hemorheology as well as the geometry of the arterioles and capillaries. Obviously, hemorheology holds a key to understand the pathological mechanisms of hypertension and to improve the effectiveness of antihypertensive drug therapy. |
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