IMMUNO-APHERESIS

Immuno-apharesis (also called immuno-adsorption) is a special extracorporeal procedure used to target specific pathogens and remove them from the plasma of patients with a range of different immunological diseases. In terms of the technique used, immuno-apharesis is similar to dialysis (the best known), in that a primary separation system (centrifugal or filtrative) is used to break the whole blood down to its constituent parts of cells and plasma. A secondary system then feeds this plasma through adsorbers (“columns”) which specifically bind selected pathogens. The cleaned plasma then rejoins the cells and the whole blood is fed back into the patient.