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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Measuring Deformability and Red Cell Heterogeneity in Blood by Ektacytometry
Published on: January 12, 2018
Modeling normal and altered human erythrocyte shapes by a new parametric equation: application to the calculation of
S Muñoz San Martín1, J L Sebastián, M Sancho
1Departamento de Física Aplicada III, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. smsm@fis.ucm.es
Abstract:
We present simple parametric equations in terms of Jacobi elliptic functions that provide a realistic model of abnormal variations in size which maintain the biconcave shape of a normal erythrocyte (anisocytosis) and abnormal variations in shape which maintain the original volume of the erythrocyte (poikilocytosis), as well as continuous deformations from the normal to the altered shapes. We illustrate our results with parameterizations of microcytes, macrocytes, and stomatocytes, and we apply these parameterizations to the numerical calculation of the induced transmembrane voltage in microcytes, macrocytes, and stomatocytes exposed to an external electromagnetic field of 1800 MHz.

