Detection of Erythrocytes in Patients with Iron-Deficiency Anemia Using Atomic Force Microscopy

The pathological changes of erythrocytes were detected at the nanometer scale, which was important for revealing the onset of diseases, early diagnosis, and effective therapies. Diseases may disturb the morphology and function of erythrocytes at molecular scale. There were dramatic surface deformations in topography of erythrocytes from patients with iron-deficiency anemia. The difference of the overall shape and surface membrane in erythrocytes from healthy people and iron-deficiency anema patients have been studied by high-resolution atomic force microscopy imaging. The results showed that we can detect healthy and pathological erythrocytes by the morphologic parameters of the peak, valley, valley-to-peak, surface fluctuation, and standard deviations of the erythrocytes. Therefore, the morphologic information of erythrocytes is very important indictor for diagnosing the healthy and disease, as well as evaluating therapeutic effect.