# Apheresis (leukapheresis)

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/apheresis/  
OnCo record `apheresis` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

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.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Also known as: leukapheresis; apheresis collection; stem cell mobilisation; stem cell collection; plerixafor mobilisation

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis

## Connected records

- terms: [Autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT)](https://onco.cc/terms/autologous-transplant/), [Bridging therapy](https://onco.cc/terms/bridging-therapy/), [Lymphodepletion before CAR-T](https://onco.cc/terms/lymphodepletion/), [Vein-to-vein time and manufacturing slots](https://onco.cc/terms/vein-to-vein-time/)
- fronts: [Cell Therapy](https://onco.cc/fronts/cell-therapy/)
- technologies: [Apheresis and starting-material collection](https://onco.cc/technologies/apheresis-starting-material/), [Autologous CAR-T manufacturing, batch by batch](https://onco.cc/technologies/car-t-manufacturing-process/), [CAR-T cell therapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/car-t/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/apheresis.json