title: Therapeutic plasma exchange in Casablanca.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) is an extracorporeal blood purification method for the treatment of diseases in which pathological proteins have to be eliminated. In the aim to demonstrate our single center activity, we analyzed our data since 2 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between years 2002 and 2005, 104 TPE procedures were performed on 42 patients. Median age and male/female ratio were 32 (range, 17-56) and 24/18, respectively. Departments those referred the majority of the TPE were neurology (n=32), nephrology (n=5) and intensive care unit (n=5). The most common indications were: polyradiculoneuropathies (53%), myasthenia gravis (17%) and Guillain-Barré syndrome (12%).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median TPE procedure per patient was 2.3 (range, 1-10). In the majority of patients, vascular access was provided by puncture of two large, durable peripheral antecubital veins. The procedures were performed with the "Haemonetic Ultralight" discontinuous flow cell separator devices. Citrate solution was used as an anticoagulant in all cases. The substitution fluids most often used in our unit are Albumin 20% solution (92 times), Albumin 4% (10 times) and fresh frozen plasma (twice). Seventy five percent of the patients showed improvement, 7% remained the same and 18% worsened. Thirteen adverse reactions were recorded.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The creation of a national registry by the local society is a vital move to improve TPE practice in our country.
authors.affiliation: Centre Régional de Transfusion Sanguine, Casablanca, Morocco. Tazi_illias@hotmail.com
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tazi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Merimi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Majd
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Benchemsi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D020275:Guillain-Barre Syndrome / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009018:Morocco; D009157:Myasthenia Gravis / Q000628:therapy*; D010951:Plasma Exchange; D012042:Registries; D012189:Retrospective Studies