Rapid Detection of Thalassaemia Carriers by Image Analysis of Dried Patterns of Blood and Plasma Droplets

The drying of drops of biological fluids such as blood/plasma leads to the formation of several interesting and complex patterns. Specific diseases can give rise to distinct drying patterns where the final pattern will depend on a number of factors such as plasma content and the morphology of the red blood cells. Thalassaemia is the most common single gene disorder in which the production of haemoglobin is impaired. At present, the gold standard method, used for carrier detection in hospitals, requires expensive instruments, skilled manpower and significant time, making it difficult to be used as an on-site method. A rapid, portable and automated technology for thalassaemia carrier screening is hence of significant importance. The carrier samples were separated from the healthy ones based on their blood and plasma droplet drying patterns. Image analysis based tools were used to identify the distinct signatory features in the patterns of the respective samples and correlated to the results obtained from the gold standard method. The proposed technique can be instrumental in developing a rapid, less laborious and cost effective ‘on-field’ screening method thus enabling the initial screening of the carriers from the large population.