Juan Pablo Córdoba

Is anticoagulation required in plasmapheresis? A University Hospital Experience in Bogota, Colombia

Anticoagulation has been considered essential during plasmapheresis. International publications and guidelines state that anticoagulation should be administered during therapy to avoid circuit clotting and impaired effectiveness. However, anticoagulation has also been associated with bleeding, fluid and electrolyte imbalances and hematological alterations. No published studies have looked at the risk to benefit ratio of the common practice of circuit anticoagulation. We describe the experience with 367 plasmapheresis sessions, in the Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, a tertiary care center in Bogota, Colombia, where no anticoagulation is used in any case. Patient characteristics and therapy complications are described. Coagulation of circuit was never reported.

Experience in therapeutic plasma exchange by membrane filtration at an academic center in Colombia: Registry of the first 500 sessions

Introduction: Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) is an extracorporeal blood purification therapy that is part of the treatment of various diseases. Plasma and blood cells can be separated by centrifugation or using membrane separators. Materials and methods: A descriptive analysis, in which the first 500 TPE sessions using membrane filtration without anticoagulation of the extracorporeal circuit are described. Results: Five hundred (500) TPE sessions were performed on 68 patients over a period of 5 years. Therapeutic indications were 17 different diseases. 5% albumin was the most frequent replacement solution used in 62% of sessions. The mean number of plasma volume replacements was 1.33. Complications occurred in 7.6% of the sessions. Arterial hypotension was the most common event and clotting of the extracorporeal circuit was documented in just one TPE session. Electrolyte tests performed in patients during the procedure showed: 11% hypocalcemia, with a similar distribution of hypokalemia. Twenty‐two percent (22%) and 37% of phosphorus and magnesium records, respectively, were higher than normal. No symptoms associated with electrolyte abnormalities were documented. Conclusions: TPE by membrane filtration is one of the techniques by which it is possible to perform such therapy. In this registry, a low rate of complications was documented. While the need for anticoagulation may be related not only to clotting of the circuit but also to the efficiency of the therapy, clinical response in this series of patients was as expected for each disease. Continuous monitoring and an individualized analysis of electrolytes should be performed in TPE patients. J. Clin. Apheresis 30:347–352, 2015.

Therapeutic plasma exchange in rheumatic diseases: a university hospital experience

INTRODUCTION Each day, evidence accumulates related to the use of therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) in patients with rheumatic diseases. San Ignacio University Hospital has recorded all of the TPE sessions performed by the institutions apheresis group. OBJECTIVE To describe the TPE experience of patients with rheumatologic diseases in a hospital setting. METHODS Descriptive, observational, retrospective analysis. This study included analyses of the TPE sessions that were performed in patients with rheumatic diseases from November 2009 to November 2013. RESULTS The apheresis group performed 136 sessions in 27 patients. The mean patient age was 43 years (SD 18.5), and 59.3% of the patients were female. Regarding the diagnosis, the most frequents ones where: ANCA-associated vasculitis followed by systemic lupus erythematosus and catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome. The average number of sessions per patient was 5 (SD 1.8), and the average plasma exchange per patient was 1.3 plasma volume replacement units. The most used replacement solution was frozen fresh plasma (FFP; 63.2% of the sessions). Of all the sessions, 4.4% presented complications, and the majority of the complications were related to vascular access. Fifteen patients required renal replacement therapy (RRT) secondary to the same cause that created the need for TPE, 3 patients required RRT due to causes other than the TPE diagnostic intervention and 1 patient had undergone chronic dialysis. CONCLUSIONS TPE is a therapeutic alternative that is needed for the management of patients with rheumatic diseases with renal involvement and those who are refractory to conventional management. Our clinical results were in agreement with the global literature.