How are Therapeutic Apheresis procedures performed?
All apheresis procedures involve connecting the blood in the patient’s veins through tubing to a machine that separates the blood into its components. The separation is done by either a centrifuge process or a filtration process in the machine. After the separation, the desired component is removed while the remainder of the components are reinfused back to the patient. This requires one or two needles to be inserted into the veins, usually one in each arm.
