Who needs apheresis products?
Patients being treated for cancer and leukemia, transplant recipients and patients with blood disorders, such as sickle cell anemia, need apheresis products. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments used to treat cancer destroy healthy cells and platelets needed to prevent bleeding. Sickle cell anemia causes red cells to lose their normal doughnut shape and become hard, sticky and shaped like sickles used to cut wheat. They also lose their ability to carry oxygen properly.
