ИСТИНА

The aim of this study was to develop means for in vivo quantitative assessment of the degree of erythrocyte aggregation in the microcirculation bed by optical capillaroscopy, which is particularly important for patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases, with the goal of in vivo identifying diagnostically significant markers [1]. Capacities and information content of in vivo measurements in human nail-bed capillaries was compared with those of in vitro measurements performed in whole blood samples by laser aggregometry technique. Hypo-thetically it was assumed that while being preferable for many patients, in vivo measurements yield sufficient information on the degree of erythrocyte aggregation for early diagnostics of microvascular dysfunction and monitoring the hemorheologic status of patients [2,3]. As a results the study showed the presence of erythrocyte aggregates in nail-bed capillaries of patients suffering from such diseases as arterial hypertension, coronary artery disease, and atrial fibrillation compared to healthy people who do not have erythrocyte aggregates in their capillaries. The number of aggregates in nail bed capillaries correlated with increased eryth-rocyte aggregation characterized by the aggregation index measured in vitro in whole blood samples. The calculated correlation matrices have shown that the alterations of the parameters meas-ured 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 applicabil-ity for the diagnostics of abnormalities of rheological properties of blood were demonstrated. We conclude that these results open up new opportunities for early non-invasive in vivo as-sessment of erythrocyte aggregation capacity and microrheologic alterations, which are typi-cal of patients suffering from many socially significant diseases. This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant № 25-15-00172).