Monitoring of the aggregation phase of erythrocyte sedimentation rate by impedance method on micrometric scale

The monitoring of the early stage of red blood cells sedimentation by an impedance method using a thin-film interdigitated array of microelectrodes (IDAE) is described. Time dependences of impedance |Z| exhibit maxima which are shifted to the shorter time period for cancer blood samples in comparison with inflammatory ones. Also the impedance rates (time derivate of impedance |Z|) were higher in cancer samples of blood. The sensitivity of this method was getting greater with both the decrease of the IDAE characteristic dimensions from 400 /spl square/m down to 5 /spl square/m and an increase of temperature from 18/spl deg/C up to 37/spl deg/C.