Therapeutic Apheresis – Innovative Blood Cleaning (purification) | Centre of Advanced Medicine, Frankfurt, Germany

Therapeutic apheresis is a modern medical procedure that gets rid of harmful substances from the blood, like heavy metals, LDL cholesterol, autoantibodies, or harmful metabolites. Unlike other treatments, it doesn't add anything to your bloodstream but rather cleans it thoroughly. It's similar to the dialysis used in kidney diseases. The process involves hooking you up to a machine that filters or absorbs the blood using special filters or absorbers. The blood that has been cleansed is then returned to your body, which helps with various health issues. The best part is that it's well-tolerated and can be done as an outpatient procedure. Apheresis is a Greek term that means "to take away" or "remove. " If you're a blood donor, you might already be familiar with the apheresis procedure. During apheresis therapy, your blood is drawn from a vein using an anticoagulant. The components of your blood (plasma and solids) are then separated from each other outside of your body using special membrane plasma separators. The desired fraction of the plasma is cleansed, and the cleaned plasma is then recombined with the blood solids (red and white blood cells and platelets) before flowing back into your body via a second access. Non-specific plasmapheresis treatment is different. Here, the previously separated blood plasma is thrown away and replaced with a complex substitution solution. Generally, apheresis doesn't cause any significant reduction of electrolytes or important antibodies. The therapeutic effect of apheresis comes from the selective removal of toxic substances and pathogens, like pathogenic proteins and products of metabolism. After the blood has been cleaned, the healthy balance of various bodily processes is restored. Therefore, apheresis is an essential part of the basic health of the body. What diseases can be addressed?Neurological disorders: Guillain-Barré syndrome, Myasthenia gravis, Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), Multiple sclerosis (MS);Autoimmune diseases: Systemic Lupus, Erythematosus (SLE), Rheumatoid arthritis, Goodpasture’s syndrome, Anti-glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) disease, Fat metabolism disorders;Metabolic disorders: Familial hypercholesterolemia, Hereditary Hemochromatosis, Hypertriglyceridemia, Wilson’s disease;Toxicological conditions: Drug overdose, Heavy metal poisoning, Acute exposure to harmful chemicals, Toxic shock syndrome;Gastroenterology: Ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease;Other: Sudden deafness, Age-related macular degeneration (a dry form of AMD), Diabetic foot syndrome unresponsive to other therapies, Lyme disease, Dilated cardiomyopathy.