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The new Outpatient TPE Clinic at UConn John Dempsey Hospital has three dedicated plasmapheresis machines. Each same-day TPE outpatient session takes about 2-3 hours.<\/p>\n
According to Elali, the majority of patients at UConn in need of plasmapheresis are those who are experiencing chronic neurological disorders without a known disease cure. \u00a0TPE helps serve as a maintenance therapy to keep their disease and symptoms under control. UConn Health cares for several patients with chronic neuromuscular diseases such as myasthenia gravis and multiple sclerosis for which a repetitive series of treatments are performed. The new outpatient plasmapheresis service will allow these patients to get their treatments without prolonged hospital stays.<\/p>\n
Plasma exchange is provided via a plasmapheresis machine connected to a patient\u2019s central venous catheter, or in certain cases, to a surgically created arteriovenous fistula or a vascular graft, as is commonly done for patients receiving outpatient chronic hemodialysis for kidney failure. \u00a0A patient\u2019s blood plasma, the liquid portion of a patient\u2019s blood (which contains proteins, electrolytes, vitamins, hormones, etc.) is mechanically separated to remove any disease-causing factors such as \u201cauto-antibodies\u201d which attack the patient\u2019s own tissues. The plasma that is removed from the patient is then replaced with another healthy protein solution.<\/p>\n
For decades UConn Health has been offering TPE and performs around 100 TPE procedures a year. Prior to the new outpatient care service, TPE patients remained in the hospital for 8 to 10 days to receive their routine maintenance plasmapheresis therapy that is usually done every other day for 3 to 7 treatments.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertain neurological diseases may require maintenance therapy up to three treatments a month which can be quite burdensome on patients if they need to remain in the hospital,\u201d says Elali. \u201cNow, thanks to UConn Health\u2019s Outpatient TPE Clinic, patients can have the therapy and then go home within 2 to 3 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
While it depends on a patient\u2019s individual disease, according to Elali, TPE can help patients have less symptoms, improve quality of life and help better manage their chronic disease.<\/p>\n
There are numerous diseases that may benefit from TPE treatments. Other conditions that are commonly treated with plasma exchange include diseases that affect the nervous system like Guillain-Barr\u00e9 Syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). It is also used to treat some diseases in which the blood is \u201ctoo thick\u201d such as a blood disorder called thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) where small blood clots can cause severe damage to organs. Some patients with severely elevated cholesterol levels can also benefit from chronic, maintenance plasma exchange treatments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very excited that we have succeeded in our efforts to offer outpatient therapeutic plasmapheresis to our patients, thanks to Dr. Elali\u2019s perseverance,\u201d shared UConn Health\u2019s Chief Nursing Officer Caryl Ryan MS, BSN, RN.<\/p>\n
Outpatient TPE Clinic patients arrive to the UConn Health Procedure Center entrance and receive his or her outpatient treatment sessions inside the hospital\u2019s Post-Anesthesia Care Unit<\/em> (PACU).<\/p>\n If you are a physician wishing to refer a patient in potential need of TPE therapy, please call 860-679-4888.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UConn Health is now home to an Outpatient Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE) Clinic. This new service will allow patients in need to have same-day outpatient plasmapheresis treatment thus avoiding a lengthy inpatient hospital stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":162827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-162784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:09:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/162827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162784"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=162784"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=162784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}