Therapeutic Apheresis

Some patients don’t need additional blood but need certain harmful substances or components removed from their blood. Our well-trained medical staff provides each patient with exceptional care and uses state-of-the-art transfusion machines to safely filter a patient’s blood and monitor necessary transfusions. Patients may be treated in select blood center locations, in the hospital or at their bedside. To locate a therapeutic apheresis center for a patient near you, please call 407.226.3811 or 561.845.2323.

Benefits of Therapeutic Apheresis

Therapeutic apheresis has been successfully used to treat many hematologic, neurologic, renal, rheumatic, and metabolic disorders. In most clinical situations, it is used to remove a pathogenic or toxic macromolecule, such as an antibody, an abnormal plasma protein, or other substance.

Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) can also be performed to replace a substance that is normally present in plasma and whose absence is harmful to the patient. Many diseases are successfully treated with a short series of procedures. Chronic regularly scheduled or intermittent procedures, as needed, may provide long-term control of other diseases, particularly if drug therapy is toxic or ineffective.

Most Common Indications Include:

• Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP)
• Guillain-Barré Syndrome
• Myasthenia Gravis
• Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIPD)
• Sickle Cell Disease
• Acute Leukemia
• Many other diseases

These are life-threatening conditions in which emergency therapeutic apheresis (on the ready 24 hours a day) is the primary mode of acute treatment. Conditions include:

• Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP)
• Acute chest syndrome in sickle cell disease
• Thrombocytosis
• Hyperleukocytosis
• Hyperviscosity