Contador de células vermelhas baseado em imagens para múltiplas espécies de animais silvestres e domésticos

Abstract

A RBC count plays an important role in the diagnostic of wild and domestic animals. Despite the many technologies available in different automated hematology analyzers, when it comes to blood of wild animals it is still difficult to find an easy and affordable solution for multiple species. This study aims to develop an automatic red blood cell counter. Blood samples (1 ocelot - Leopardus pardalis, 1 monkey - Cebus apella, 1 coati - Nasua nasua, 62 dogs - Canis familiaris and 5 horses - Equus caballus) were analyzed using three methods: 1-manual count, 2automatic count by image and 3-semi-automatic count by image; blood from dogs and horses were also analyzed by a fourth method: 4-automatic count by impedance. The counts of methods 2 and 3 were produced by the proposed red blood cell counter. Results were compared using Pearson’s correlation and plots with different methods as the criterion standard. RBC counts of methods 1, 2 and 3 correlated very well with those on the method 4 (r ≥ 0.94). RBC counts produced by method 2 were highly correlated with method 3 (r = 0.998). The results indicate that the proposed method can be used as an automatic or semi-automatic counting method in clinics that are currently using the manual method for RBC assessment.