Modified waveguide sensor for millimeter dielectric study of human erythrocytes in medical research

The effective evaluation of patients´ health status in the rehabilitation process as well as the search for potential monitoring methods has always been of paramount importance to medicine. So the study of physicochemical characteristics of blood, in parallel with clinical analysis, allows obtaining more information about the state of health at the cellular level. In particular, change in the dielectric properties of erythrocytes in millimeter range indicates a change of their water content being an important criterion of physiological state. To detect this dielectric behavior of cell water in blood the waveguide dielectrometry method based on complex reflection coefficient (CRC) measurements has been used. The outstanding features of this method are twofold: i) dielectrometer operates at a fixed frequency (39.5 GHz) that corresponds to γ-dispersion domain and the size of the sensor enables to make measurements in the microsampling mode (5-6 μl); ii) as the measuring sensor is used waveguide cuvette modified by dielectric inserts. Measuring system based on reflectometer with a six-port measuring line was described in detail previously. The goal of current work is to demonstrate the improvement of the measuring sensitivity by the use of modified waveguide sensor as well as its potential for application in clinical research.