[1] Three general types of plasmapheresis can be distinguished: Plasmapheresis of the autologous and exchange types is used to treat a variety of disorders, including those of the immune system, such as Goodpasture's syndrome,[3] Guillain–Barré syndrome, lupus, myasthenia gravis,[4][5] and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.

Citrate is very effective in preventing blood from clotting; however, its use can lead to life-threateningly low calcium levels.

In others, including the United States, Austria, Germany and some Canadian facilities plasma donors are paid for their donations.

[20] Standards for donating plasma are set by national regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),[21] the European Union, and by a professional organization, the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (or PPTA),[22] which audits and accredits collection facilities.

[25] The collected plasma is promptly frozen at lower than -20 °C (-4 °F) and is typically shipped to a processing facility for fractionation.

This process separates the collected plasma into specific components, such as albumin and immunoglobulins, most of which are made into medications for human use.

[26] Plasmapheresis was originally described by doctors Vadim A. Yurevick and Nicolay Rosenberg of the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy of Saint Petersburg in 1913.

Performed in 1951, this was the most exhaustive study to date of the medium-term effects on the human body, and involved more than 320 plasmapheresis procedures.

The results of the study were presented at the 4th International Congress of Blood Transfusion in Lisbon (1951), and were published in 1952 in the British Medical Journal[33] and Medicina Clínica in Spain.

[35] In 1955, further data were presented at the 5th Congress of the European Hematology Society, in Freiburg, Germany, based on the ongoing performance of plasmapheresis over a five-year period.

[35] Michael Rubinstein was the first to use plasmapheresis to treat an immune-related disorder when he saved the life of an adolescent boy with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in 1959.

[36] The modern plasmapheresis process itself originated in the U.S. National Cancer Institute between 1963 and 1968, where investigators drew upon an old dairy creamer separation technology first used in 1878 and refined by Edwin Cohn's centrifuge marketed in 1953.

This replaced a fragmented, manual process with a continuous automatic method which enabled blood components to be extracted, separated and returned to the donor in a single procedure.