Apheresis medicine state of the art in 2010: American Society for Apheresis fifth special edition of the Journal of Clinical Apheresis

Abstract

The quality of evidence supporting the use of apheresis in the treatment of individual diseases and disorders is often limited. For most diseases and disorders, randomized controlled trials of the use of apheresis have not been performed and for many, due to rarity of the condition, it is unlikely that they will ever be performed. In keeping with its vision, the American Society for Apheresis (ASFA) has created and regularly updated guidelines on the use of apheresis in the treatment of disease. These guidelines seek to summarize the literature on the use of apheresis in treating diseases, provide a critical review of this literature, and give practical guidance to apheresis practitioners. The most recent ASFA guidelines were published in 2010. This article reviews the history of the ASFA guidelines, the changes that were made in the 2010 guidelines, and future directions and plans for these guidelines. The 2010 ASFA guidelines on the use of therapeutic apheresis in clinical practice represent the state of the art in apheresis medicine in 2010.

A proposal for sectorial organizing and quality standards in therapeutic apheresis: The therapeutic apheresis unit (TAU) standards

“…The American Society for Apheresis (ASFA) regularly publishes and updates clinical guidelines to properly perform TA in a wide series of human diseases . Some recently published papers highlighted the importance of quality and educational issues in TA . Here, we describe the more relevant characteristics of a model of TA standards, named TA unit (TAU) standards, that may help to establish a quality program in units working in the field of TA (shown as supplementary material and available at http://www.ifeit.org/pdf/TAU_Standards_3.0.pdf).…”

“…3 Some recently published papers highlighted the importance of quality and educational issues in TA. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Here, we describe the more relevant characteristics of a model of TA standards, named TA unit (TAU) standards, that may help to establish a quality program in units working in the field of TA (shown as supplementary material and available at http://www.ifeit.org/pdf/TAU_Standards_ 3.0.pdf). This expert group had four residential meetings that were coordinated by an expert in quality assurance (Selena Palma, Exem Consulting sa, Melide, Switzerland) and several meetings that were remote web-based conferences.…”

Apheresis research–more abstracts should be published as full manuscripts to provide more evidence for clinical practice guidelines

“…A recent PubMed search with the keyword "apheresis" yielded a median of 578 indexed articles per year (range: 554-728) in English language between 2005 and 2012. Another literature search using "therapeutic apheresis" only, "donor apheresis" only, and "cellular therapy" only was also performed and the results showed a yearly median of 17 (range: 6-26), 6 (range: [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], and 168 (range: 68-274) articles in each field, respectively during the same time-period. Hence, in 2012, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with the American Society for Apheresis (ASFA) held a sympo-sium to address the need for apheresis research, as well as the barriers to achieving that goal [3][4][5][6].…”

National Institutes of Health State of the Science Symposium in Therapeutic Apheresis: Scientific Opportunities in Extracorporeal Photopheresis

“…Yet, there remains a paucity of randomized controlled clinical trials for many clinical indications with most evidence relying on case reports or series [3].…”