Apheresis in donor and therapeutic settings: Recruitments vs. possibilities—a multicenter study

In our country, the first apheresis was performed in the late 1960s (by manual technique), and the first cell separator was used in 1979. The number of blood component collections performed from 1994 to 2004 was: 11,170 (total), i.e., 8540 (NBTI), 1180 (IT-MMA), 1050 (BTI of Novi Sad) and 400 (BTI Nis). The number of PBSC harvests during 1996-2004 was 386 for treatment of 272 patients. For treatment of myocardial infarction, "cell-therapy" by autologous stem cells was introduced in 2004 at the MMA. The results of PE treatments performed (7632 sessions) by our group for various immune-mediated and other disorders were generally beneficial, but the effect is not associated with bone marrow remission. TC procedures (total number=1279) resulted in a significant fall in the blood cell counts and hemorheological improvement, as well as the removal and replacement of abnormal red blood cells. Greater standardization of different apheresis protocols is required.

The historical development of automated hemapheresis

Many studies in the early twentieth century involved attempts to separate white blood cells from whole blood for further examination and experimentation as well as for the treatment of neutropenic patients. In the 1950s, the need to use blood and its derivatives efficiently produced the first apparatus to separate blood continuously in a closed system. The prototypes of present-day continuous flow blood cell separators were developed in the 1960s.