Texas Children’s Begins Offering Pheresis

Texas Children’s Hospital recently became equipped to provide its patients with pheresis – the process of separating unwanted cells or components, such as abnormal white cells in a leukemia patient, from a patient’s blood and returning the desired components, along with the replacement fluids, to the patient.

Centrifuges inside the pheresis machines spin the blood so fast it separates into different components, making it easy to remove the plasma from the whole blood.

“Pheresis is most commonly used in patients with sickle cell disease, neurology and hematology patients, and patients who need transplantation,” said Jun Teruya, M.D., medical director of the hospital’s pheresis program. “We expect to handle about 200 pheresis treatments per year.”

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