Blood scrubbing removes cholesterol
Patients with extremely elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol, in the blood can be helped through a procedure called LDL-apheresis, which absorbs the LDL from the blood.MUSC is planning to expand its LDL-apheresis service, having begun about two years ago with one patient and now working with a second patient. The procedure is done in some 30 medical centers nationally, including the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health. MUSC, up until several months ago, was the only medical center in the Southeast offering the service.
Hemapherisis
Unit nurse Lynn Alexander adjusts an IV catheter for patient Michael Fraticelli
during his three-hour LDL-apheresis procedure. This is Fraticelli's fourth
procedure using the liposorber-MA01 which absorbs cholesterol from his
blood.
During this procedure, blood is removed from the patient through a catheter and drained into a device called a liposorber, which absorbs the LDL from the plasma.
Once scrubbed of the LDL, the blood is pumped back into the body. The procedure is only used in patients for whom diet and maximum drug therapy have either been ineffective or not tolerated.
Patients have to have the process repeated, with frequency depending
on their levels of LDL and how quickly more LDL builds up following removal.
A treatment takes two to three hours.
Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as
needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu
or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community
Press at 849-1778.