Basics of Extracorporeal Therapy for Toxin Exposures

Course overview

Extracorporeal therapies remove blood from our patients, manipulate or remove a component and then return the blood to our patients. The most common modalities used in veterinary medicine are hemodialysis, charcoal hemoperfusion, and therapeutic plasma exchange. Patients undergoing timely extracorporeal therapy can have a shortened course of intoxication or decreased severity of intoxication. However, these treatments are not without risks and serious adverse events have been reported. We will discuss the basics of each different treatment modality, characteristics of toxins that indicate which modality is most likely to be effective, and how to determine if your case might benefit from extracorporeal therapy. Specifically, we will discuss how to select the correct patient at the correct time with the right dosage and the right clinical signs in order to maximize the chances of a successful outcome.