Therapeutic Apheresis

Apheresis is a process of separating the individual components of blood using a machine. Apheresis is commonly done on donors where the entire blood is filtered to obtain individual components i.e., red blood cells, platelets, plasma based on specific gravity to use for transfusion in different patients. Apheresis can also be used as a therapeutic agent to treat various disorders. Therapeutic apheresis is a treatment which removes abnormal cells in the blood which are correlated with a certain disease states. The basic premise of therapeutic apheresis is that removal of certain pathologic cells will reduce organ or tissue damage and may permit reversal of a pathologic process. In order to prevent volume depletion during therapeutic plasmapheresis, the volume of plasma removed must be replaced by plasma, colloid, or crystalloid. Some complications differ depending on whether the replacement fluid is allogeneic (donor) plasma or albumin.