The aim of this work is to propose and evaluate a suitable sensor to determine the leukocyte density in suspension. This sensor could be used to development of a home device that allows having relevant medical information on the leukocytes of an individual. To this end, we investigate a simple optical device to measure the average extinction coefficient of leukocytes in suspension. This is equivalent to the measurement of the so-called optical density of cell’s suspensions, extensively used in microbiology laboratories. The device utilizes a LED to illuminate a large volume of the sample and a simple lens to collect the coherently scattered light into a photodetector. The resulting transmittance signal has a high signal-to-noise ratio and follows Beer Lambert’s law, thus, allowing a straight-forward measure of leukocytes average optical properties in suspension or number-density. Compared to the standard way of measuring the optical density of cells suspensions, the proposed device is much simpler and robust. Measurements are insensitive to settling of cells during measurements. The proposed device could be the basis for designing a ‘point-of-care’ device to follow up progress of leukemia patients at home.

中文翻译：

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用于监测悬浮液中白细胞特性的基本光学传感器

这项工作的目的是提出和评估一种合适的传感器来确定悬浮液中的白细胞密度。该传感器可用于开发家庭设备，该设备允许获取有关个人白细胞的相关医学信息。为此，我们研究了一种简单的光学装置来测量悬浮液中白细胞的平均消光系数。这相当于测量细胞悬液的所谓光密度，广泛用于微生物实验室。该设备利用 LED 照亮大量样品，并利用一个简单的透镜将相干散射光收集到光电探测器中。由此产生的透射信号具有高信噪比并遵循比尔朗伯定律，因此，允许直接测量悬浮液或数密度中的白细胞平均光学特性。与测量细胞悬浮液光密度的标准方法相比，所提出的装置更简单和坚固。测量对测量期间电池的沉降不敏感。拟议的设备可能是设计“即时”设备以在家中跟踪白血病患者进展的基础。