Plasmapheresis

Plasmapheresis (from the Greek πλάσμα—plasma, something molded, and ἀφαίρεσις—aphairesis, taking away) is the removal, treatment, and return of (components of) blood plasma from blood circulation. It is thus an extracorporeal therapy (a medical procedure performed outside the body). The method is also used during plasma donation: blood is removed from the body, blood cells and plasma are separated, the blood cells are returned while the plasma is collected and frozen to preserve it for eventual use in the manufacture of a variety of medications.

The procedure is used to treat a variety of disorders, including those of the immune system, such as Goodpasture's syndrome,myasthenia gravis,Guillain-Barré syndrome, lupus, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.

History

Michael Rubinstein was the first person to use plasmapheresis to treat an immune-related disorder when he "saved the life of an adolescent boy with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) at the old Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in 1959". The modern plasmapheresis process itself originated in the "[U.S.] National Cancer Institute between 1963 and 1968, [where] investigators drew upon an old dairy creamer separation technology first used in 1878 and refined by Edwin Cohn's centrifuge marketed in 1953."