{"entity":{"id":"apheresis","kind":"term","name":"Apheresis (leukapheresis)","aka":["leukapheresis","apheresis collection","stem cell mobilisation","stem cell collection","plerixafor mobilisation"],"tldr":"Running a patient's blood through a machine that skims off one type of cell (T cells, or stem cells) and returns the rest; the harvested cells become the raw material for CAR-T or a transplant.","summary":"For CAR-T, leukapheresis collects the patient's lymphocytes over 3-4 hours, which are shipped to a manufacturing site; heavy prior chemotherapy or a low lymphocyte count can make the product fail. For autologous transplant, stem cells are mobilised from the marrow into blood with G-CSF (plus plerixafor if needed) and collected the same way, then cryopreserved. Slot availability and vein-to-vein time depend on apheresis capacity, a real bottleneck in cell therapy.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis"}],"tags":[],"related":["autologous-transplant","vein-to-vein-time","lymphodepletion"],"cancers":[],"sections":["cell-therapy"],"technologies":["car-t","apheresis-starting-material"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Procedures"},"route":"/terms/apheresis/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"autologous-transplant","kind":"term","name":"Autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT)","route":"/terms/autologous-transplant/"},{"id":"bridging-therapy","kind":"term","name":"Bridging therapy","route":"/terms/bridging-therapy/"},{"id":"lymphodepletion","kind":"term","name":"Lymphodepletion before CAR-T","route":"/terms/lymphodepletion/"},{"id":"vein-to-vein-time","kind":"term","name":"Vein-to-vein time and manufacturing slots","route":"/terms/vein-to-vein-time/"}],"section":[{"id":"cell-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Cell Therapy","route":"/fronts/cell-therapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"apheresis-starting-material","kind":"technology","name":"Apheresis and starting-material collection","route":"/technologies/apheresis-starting-material/"},{"id":"car-t-manufacturing-process","kind":"technology","name":"Autologous CAR-T manufacturing, batch by batch","route":"/technologies/car-t-manufacturing-process/"},{"id":"car-t","kind":"technology","name":"CAR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/car-t/"}]}}