Electrical and morphological changes of RBCs for neonatal jaundice

Neonatal jaundice, an extremely common occurrence among neonates in the first week of life. In the present study, a group of hundred infants (84 patients, from various clinical subpopulations + 16 controls) were included. The quantification of the morphological shape changes revealed that G-6-PD deficient neonates had a significant increase in echinocytes as well as in the morphological index (p 0.01), when compared with the data from healthy neonates or G-6-PD non-deficient ones. The dielectric properties of neonatal erythrocytes have been studied in the frequency range 20 Hz to 100 KHz. The combined application of dielectric spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope can be used as an efficient manner for monitoring abnormalities in blood due to these pathological cases. The rheological and durability properties of the erythrocytes were investigated using spectral analysis and osmotic fragility. Absorption spectra of erythrocytes shows a significant decrease of splitting factor (SF) as bilirubin (Bb) conc. increases, indicating that the cells tend to convert from oxygenated to deoxygenated state with a peak at 560 nm which is confirmed by SF values.