Haemapheresis is concerned with the separation of blood. It is not only able to separate cells from the blood fluid (plasma) and vice versa plasma from the cells (primary separation), but also (secondary separation, differential separation) cellular blood components and plasma constituents. Thus it can be usefully applied in many areas of medicine such as internal medicine (mainly haematology, oncology, nephrology) transfusion medicine, neurology, dermatology, ophthalmology, otology etc.

Techniques applied are centrifugation and filtration.

Centrifugation is used for cytapheresis and plasmaseparation where filtration is limited to plasmaseparation.

Haemapheresis is indicated for

• Cytapheresis treatments
• Platelet and granulocyte donations
• Stem cell donations and leucozyte differential preparation

• Plasma exchange therapies
• Plasma treatments using plasma differential separation

Haemapheresis offers mainly palliative therapies, ranging from an improvement of the quality of life to live saving measures. Haemapheresis is performed under the supervision of the regional health authorities like any other medical practice, clinic or hospital. If haemapheresis techniques are applied in transfusion medicine, additional legal requirements and guidelines of the regional and national boards and transfusion societies are observed. With the development of the European Union, national responsibilities will be replaced from rules and regulations of the European Community.