Mapping of blood coagulation via image processing method

In recent years, numerous studies have been accomplished upon image processing applications which are an attractive engineering area for researchers. Biomedical applications including both medicine and engineering are important in contemporary conditions. Such applications based on image process algorithms are developed to aid doctors for diagnostic of some diseases. Several conventional tests are available about measuring blood coagulation such as PTZ, aPTZ, PTZ-INR. These tests are daily performed before every surgical operation even during some critical operations. In this study, "power analysis" method is used to determine the number of subjects. Accuracy of the study is supposed as %90 in according to conventional tests. The number of subjects resulted from a study regarding typeI %5 error level, is determined as 18. Hormonal differences between men and women are considered, so samples are taken from 18 subjects including 9 men and 9 women. Aproximately 5µlt of blood is dropped onto a lamina from fingertip of every subject via lancet. Then, photographs are taken by a microscope connected to a computer in every 15 seconds, in such a way that 45 photographs are obtained till end of coagulation. These photographs are processed in an image processing algorithm in Matlab software. Hence, a graphical representation is produced for every subject. Results obtained from the proposed method prove that it can be a useful alternative to conventional methods.