Clinical experience in treatment with therapeutic apheresis in the military school hospital «Dr. Alejandro Davila Bolanos

Abstract

Therapeutic plasmapheresis is a procedure with enormous therapeutic benefits when used in pathologies with proven efficacy. It is a treatment technique aimed mainly at autoimmune diseases. It has gained great importance in the management of renal, rheumatological, neurological, infectious and metabolic diseases. Currently. It has been positioned as the first-line treatment. These types of pathologies are not so frequent in our environment, the incidence in the Nicaraguan population has increased progressively. The prevalence of multiple sclerosis in 2012 compared to 2013 increased from 1.8 to 2 per 100,000 inhabitants in our country. The experience is described clinic in the treatment with therapeutic apheresis in patients treated at the Internal Medicine Service of the Hospital Militar Escuela «Dr. Alejandro Davila Bolaños. Methodology A retrospective, descriptive, observational study was conducted at the Hospital Militar Escuela «Dr. Alejandro Dávila Bolaños”, during 2017-2019 with the aim of describing the clinical experience of patients treated with therapeutic apheresis. In the hospital, 36 patients were treated, of which 25 met the inclusion criteria for the study. The results show that 92% of selected patients had neurological diseases and 8% kidney diseases. 80% of patients had an adequate response. The most frequent indication for plasmapheresis was the diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (32%), followed by Guillain-Barré syndrome (28%) and multiple sclerosis (12%). 76% of the patients had no complications during the procedure, while 24% experienced transient arterial hypotension that resolved within the first 20 minutes of the procedure.