Using a blood-filtering technique known as plasmapheresis, doctors can now lower the odds that a recipient will reject an incompatible kidney.
The patient received plasmapheresis again, and her symptoms improved slowly.
She was sent for plasmapheresis, a treatment in which the paralyzing agent in G.B.S. is filtered from the blood.
I offered to be a donor and was successful, even though we were incompatible blood types and he required plasmapheresis to remove his antibodies.
Plasmapheresis is used only in cases in which the patient has a live donor.
Dr. Steven J. Lobritto, NewYork-Presbyterian's medical director for pediatric liver transplants, urged Dr. Lalazar and his colleagues to perform plasmapheresis, a procedure that separates blood cells from plasma and lets doctors replace the patient's plasma.
Mr. Richmond said he vividly recalled the moment when the specialists were clustered in his room, pondering the new development, and one doctor started talking about an article he had read several months earlier in a medical journal about a procedure called plasmapheresis.
Lowering cholesterol by such diverse means as bile sequestering resins, diet and exercise, even intestinal bypass surgery and mechanical removal of LDL cholesterol from the blood by a method called plasmapheresis improved the outcome of patients with high levels of cholesterol.
Petrov refers him to specialists in neurology, plasmapheresis and psychiatry and orders a laundry list of tests.
They gave Mr. Richmond a regimen of steroids and processed his blood with plasmapheresis, a procedure similar to dialysis but in which the plasma is removed and replaced by donated plasma.
Hopkins and Mayo, unlike Cedars-Sinai, rely on plasmapheresis, a blood-cleansing process that can eliminate the dangerous antibodies, generally followed by low doses of IVIG.
