1G-3 HF Ultrasound Device Designed to Describe the Whole Blood Coagulation Process: Application to Rats under Anticoagulant Therapy

In previous studies [Ossant, et. al., 2004; Libgot, et. al., 2005], we presented a device capable to simultaneously estimate, during the blood clotting process, HF ultrasound parameters both in double-transmission mode (DT-mode) and in backscattering mode (BS-mode). The integrated BS coefficient (IBC) and the effective scatterer size (ESS) were evaluated between 10 and 30 MHz. In DT-mode, sound velocity was estimated with a 45 MHz transducer. The aim of the present work was to confirm several specific results with human whole blood and to validate the method with an animal model: the rat under anticoagulant therapy. Acoustic velocity was estimated during ex-vivo coagulation process of blood from heparin-treated rats