Kampala — The Uganda Cancer Institute announced that it has added a new technology of blood and cellular therapy to provide more treatment options for patients, including those without cancer, but referred for advanced management.

The therapy named apheresis is a procedure in which blood is collected and part of the blood such as platelets or white blood cells is taken out while the rest of the blood is returned to the donor.

Addressing journalists on Wednesday, Ritah Bafumba, the head of the nurse and haematology ward at the Uganda Institute said there are two apheresis machines installed at the cancer institute.

"One is used for donation and the other is for treatment. The one used for treating is the one we use to collect the particular component of blood that we need. A donor will walk in the way we usually go to donate blood and we will ascertain whether they meet the criteria we will take off blood samples from them, and take them to the procedure room. We will then connect the tubings to the donor and when blood starts flowing from the donor to the machine, the machine will separate different blood components," Bafumba said.

She explained that the machine separates the blood components according to how heavy they are with the heaviest ones remaining downs whereas plasma and platelets will remain on top.