A study on size and shape of erythrocytes of normal and malarial blood

The size and shape are of clinical importance not only to characterize different cells but also in differentiating bnormal from normal blood cells. For example, the size of red blood cells differs from one individual to another but are distributed about a mean and hence the average size has to be determined. Similarly, there can be a change in the shape of the cells as is noticed in the case of sickle cell anemia . The size and shape of blood cells are determined usually by microscope. But this method besides being tedious can not be extended to a large number of cells and samples. In view of these ,a simple and rapid method is developed for determining the average size and shape of blood cells by laser diffraction method which was found to be free from the practical difficulties of the past techniques like optical and eriometer methods with the results in agreement with laser diffraction method. The variations in morphological parameters give clues to many disease conditions and guide additional diagnostic information.