Plasmapheresis in Ophthalmology

Abstract

Loss of sight is one of the most severe disabling factors in human. The total number of such people is known to account for millions worldwide. The significant spread of such diseases, which affect millions of people all around the world, shows the problem to be urgent. In North America alone more than 1 million are completely blind and about 14 million have some degree of sight loss. There are many different diseases that lead to sight loss such as diabetic retinopathy, senile macular degeneration, various types of autoimmune retinopathy, optic nerves damage and many others. As a rule, they cannot be corrected with glasses, and not always amenable to drug therapy. Often the cause of these diseases is accumulation of various autoantibodies and other metabolites, the molecules large size of which does not allow them to be excreted by the kidneys and the fact of their accumulation indicates impossibility of their removal with help of drug therapy. It makes us resort to such method of their direct removal from the body as plasmapheresis and the aim of this study is to justify its use in ophthalmology.