Erythrocyte morphology automated analysis: proposal for a new prediction tool of essential hypertension diagnosis

Background: The study of cell shape transformation of human erythrocyte is of great hematologic interest because several clinical conditions are associated with erythrocyte shape changes. Erythrocyte morphology has already been studied in essential hypertension (EH) and cell membrane alterations have been observed. Relationships among red cell rheological, biochemical, and morphological properties still appear complex and are not clearly understood. Methods: Erythrocyte morphology study was carried out by using the novel automated method we have recently developed. The morphometric parameters derived from optical microscope images were elaborated with image processing software (NIH Scion Image) to construct an application for the principal component analysis (PCA) to achieve a reliable and objective statistical method that would discriminate among erythrocyte morphologies of the considered groups. Three groups of subjects were studied: healthy (n = 30), healthy with familial EH (n = 25), and EH suffering subjects (n = 26). Results: Our results show that morphological modifications are evident in both erythrocytes from EH and from healthy with familial EH subjects as compared to the controls. PCA showed remarkable morphological alterations in EH patients. In fact, the PCA explains for the 86.271% of the total variance that can be considered an excellent result. Conclusions: The results suggest that the use of this automated easy and inexpensive method for the detection of cell shape abnormalities is of high value in the early EH prediction. Furtermore, the combination of the present method with new developing sophisticated techniques would be of high value in the analysis of cell morphology for EH prediction and for early diagnosis of other erythrocyte morphology related pathologies as well.