Photopheresis (ECP) - Children's outreach service
Rotherham's photopheresis (ECP) team provides treatment to Leeds Children's Hospital and Sheffield Children's Hospital.
ECP nurses work with the doctors and nurses at your hospital to start your treatment. We then come to your hospital to give you your treatment over 2 days.
Photopheresis (ECP) works by making white bloods cells behave better. It stops your skin and tummy being very sore and helps you fight off infections. Hopefully you can stop taking as many tablets.
We will use your central line (wiggly line) for your treatment. The machine is quite noisy but it will not cause you any pain or discomfort.
During treatment you need to have a bag of blood to fill up the spinning bowl in the ECP machine. This takes about 15 minutes. When the bowl is full the nurse switches the bag off and then connects the machine's tubes to your wiggly line.
The machine collects your blood and separates the red blood cells from the white blood cells.
It gives you your red blood cells back but keeps lots of the white blood cells which are causing the problem.
When we have collected enough white blood cells, the machine stops and the nurse adds a special medicine called Uvadex. Once this is added, the nurse switches on the special ultraviolet (UVA) lights. The lights shine on your white blood cells and make the special medicine stick to them.
It changes your white blood cells and makes them behave. At the end of the treatment, the treated blood cells go back to you.
Your treatment takes about 2 hours and during this time you can play on the bed, read, watch television or play on your tablet. You can eat and drink as normal.