Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a new way to monitor blood clotting in real time using a special microscope and artificial intelligence (AI).
This breakthrough could make heart disease treatment safer and more personalized.
Platelets are tiny blood cells that help stop bleeding by forming clots.
They’re essential for healing, but sometimes they clump together inside arteries and cause dangerous blockages. In people with coronary artery disease (CAD), these clots can trigger heart attacks or strokes.
“Platelets play a crucial role in heart disease, especially in CAD, because they are directly involved in forming blood clots,” explained Dr. Kazutoshi Hirose, an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo Hospital.
“Many CAD patients take drugs to reduce platelet activity, but it’s hard to tell how well those drugs are working in each person. That’s why we need better ways to monitor platelet behavior.”
To solve this problem, Dr. Hirose and his team created a system using a high-speed microscope and AI.
Their device, called a frequency-division multiplexed (FDM) microscope, works like a super-fast camera that captures sharp images of blood cells as they move through a fluid channel—similar to how traffic cameras catch every car on the road.
“We used AI to analyze thousands of images per second,” said co-author Dr. Yuqi Zhou. “The AI can tell if it’s looking at a single platelet, a group of platelets, or even a white blood cell mixed in. This allows us to see how clots are forming in real time.”
The team tested their system on blood samples from more than 200 patients. They found that people with acute coronary syndrome—who are at higher risk of heart attacks—had more platelet clumps than those with more stable conditions. This supports the idea that the technology can detect clotting risk quickly and accurately.
One of the most surprising discoveries was that regular blood samples taken from a patient’s arm worked just as well as samples from inside the heart’s arteries.
“Usually, doctors need to do an invasive procedure to collect blood from the heart area to check for clots,” said Hirose. “But we found that a simple blood draw from the arm can give us the same important information. That makes the process easier, safer, and more comfortable for patients.”
This new method could lead to better, more personalized treatment for heart disease. Different people respond differently to anti-clotting drugs—some may still develop dangerous clots, while others may bleed too easily. The new system could help doctors adjust medications based on how each person’s platelets are actually behaving.
“Even something as small as a blood cell can tell a big story about your health,” said Zhou.
The researchers hope that this technology will one day become a standard tool for tracking heart disease risk and helping doctors choose the right treatment for every patient.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and Vitamin K2 could help reduce heart disease risk.
For more information about heart health, please see recent studies about how to remove plaques that cause heart attacks, and results showing a new way to prevent heart attacks, strokes.
The study is published in Nature Communications.
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