High frequency ultrasound imaging of whole blood gelation and retraction during in vitro coagulation

Blood coagulation is a series of biochemical reactions resulting in the mechanical transformation of liquid blood into a gel. As a consequence, ultrasound, being mechanical waves, can provide specific details on the dynamics of coagulation. In fact, previous high-frequency ultrasound monitoring studies have shown drastic changes in ultrasound velocity and attenuation during whole blood coagulation and a model discussing the observed mechanical transformations was proposed. In this paper, a technique of visualization of the clotting mechanism is introduced, which complements and revises the previous hypotheses. This method is based on the monitoring of scatterers (red blood cells) movement through a time correlation of 20 MHZ rf signals. It allows the computing of both a displacement map revealing local details and disparities and a parameter quantifying the global structural behavior. Qualitative results for two typical samples show that the technique provides new insights on the gelation dynamics. A quantitative analysis computed from 12 healthy subjects found that the changes in the structural parameters are significantly correlated to the changes in velocity and attenuation, both dependent on the mechanical transformations in the sample. The previous model is therefore revised and a new way to measure gel and retraction times is proposed.