Reply To: Plasma exchange time to improvement?

February 21, 2017 at 11:46 pm

I was on a typical combination of PE with Prednisone. I started treatments with a central venous tunneled catheter. I felt improvement 3 days after my first treatment. I went on to about 50 PE’s all together.

More info about PE can be read here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11406009
http://www.transfusionguidelines.org/transfusion-handbook/11-therapeutic-apheresis/11-1-therapeutic-plasma-exchange-tpe

The formula most doctors use for calculating volumes for PE treatments:
Estimated plasma volume (in litres) = 0.07 x wt (kg) x (1 – hematocrit)
So, 1 plasma volume in 80kg male with Hct of 30 (0.3) = 0.07 x 80 x 0.7 = 3.92L
1.5 plasma volumes = 3.92 x 1.5 = 5.88L
Whereas… 1 plasma volume in 60kg female with Hct of 35 (0.35) = 0.07 x 60 x 0.65 = 2.73L