Repeated Leukapheresis of Patients with Chronic Myelocytic Leukemia

The technic of plasmapheresis has been employed repeatedly to obtain large numbers of granulocytes from patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia. Up to 20 liters of blood from a single donor could be processed by centrifugation in one week without changes in the patient's clinical condition or his blood proteins as long as the plasma and red cells were both returned. The major limiting factor was the chronic removal of small amounts of red cells with each unit, resulting in decrease in hemoglobin level with intensive and prolonged periods of plasmapheresis. Removal of granulocytes at rates up to 3 × 10 11 per day produced little consistent decrease in peripheral white count unless it was continued for a week or more. Plasmapheresis is a safe and relatively simple technic for the collection of large numbers of leukocytes from donors with chronic myelocytic leukemia.