Definition of "apheresis" []

• Linguistics Variant of aphaeresis. (noun)
• Medicine A procedure in which blood is drawn from a donor and separated into its components, some of which are retained, such as plasma or platelets, and the remainder returned by transfusion to the donor. Also called hemapheresis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The current state of bone marrow transplantation is that the immature blood cells are harvested using a process called apheresis which is in fact very similar to undergoing dialysis."
• "Today more than two-thirds of all donations are accomplished through a process called apheresis."
• "The agency Friday issued a heparin import alert as part of its investigation into hundreds of reports of allergic reactions in large doses of heparin sold by Baxter for heart surgery, kidney dialysis and a procedure called apheresis used in immune-disorder patients."