With Prosorba therapy continually being refined, Ross said there's evidence it now can help up to approximately half of the patients who meet the criteria for treatment. Patients sit in a reclining chair or bed during the two-hour procedure, as if they were giving blood or having blood drawn. Most read or sleep. At Shands at UF, Ross and his UF colleagues in nephrology perform the treatment in the hospital's outpatient kidney dialysis unit. Sabrina Johnson, vice president of sales and marketing with Fresenius HemoCare, says in the best cases, Prosorba can render a patient's rheumatoid arthritis inactive for a year to a year and a half after completing the 12-week therapy, although one patient's arthritis has been in remission for more than four years.
Most patients then can repeat the treatment.
Johnson says Prosorba therapy is offered at about 150 hospitals and private medical practices in the United States. Ross said future research studies will be conducted to test the Prosorba technology against a variety of other autoimmune diseases.