Haemapheresis activities in Germany

Preparative and therapeutic haemaphereses are well established in Germany. Plasma and platelets are the most often collected products by apheresis. 1,090,329 l of apheresed plasma were collected for fractionation in 2002. For therapeutic purposes 410,507 transfusion units (TUs) of plasma and 227,096 TUs of platelets were harvested by apheresis. The number of allogeneic and autologous peripheral blood stem cell collections is steadily increasing and supplants more and more the harvesting of bone marrow. There is only a small market for the collection of red blood cells (RBCs) by apheresis (4982 TUs in 2002) and multicomponent donation. Unfortunately, there is no central register for the data acquisition of therapeutic aphereses which makes it impossible to gain exact data about the number of performed procedures as well as their side effects. Preparative haemapheresis are usually carried out by specialists in Transfusion Medicine, whereas therapeutic aphereses are performed by experts in Transfusion Medicine and by clinicians of different specialities. Besides the well established plasmaphereses and cell depletions, new interesting therapeutic apheresis techniques, e.g. for the treatment of sudden hearing loss and cardiomyopathy, are promising.