title: Three-dimensional observations of red blood cell deformation in capillaries.
abstract: The shape changes of red blood cells (RBCs) flowing in narrow glass capillaries have been studied by the use of two microscopes viewing the cells simultaneously at right angles along a horizontal and a vertical optical axis. The observations show that the primary mode of deformation of RBCs in a narrow capillary is a folding or bending about the longitudinal axis of the capillary rather than a compression and extension of the cells in the plane of the original disk, which has been suggested previously [10].
mesh_terms: D002196:Capillaries; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D008833:Microcirculation; D008853:Microscopy