Veterinary Apheresis Service UK

15/11/2024

VAS vêt Jenny finds herself at the other side of the needle this week. Long term knee pain after a traumatic knee injury in 2019. OA basically and much the same as some of our equine patients we’ve treated with prp. So we attended the stem cell clinic in Stafford and received a prp injection administered by Ansar Mahmood a frankly awe inspiring clinician. Trauma orthopaedic surgeon within the nhs but with huge belief and enthusiasm in biologics especially prp. Lots of nerdy conversation about ideal prp content, a superb comparative learning opportunity and a seamless expertly delivered process. We use a centrifuge system at VAS as a back up to apheresis and for smaller patients. We enjoyed sharing our mutual positive findings using estar médicals tropocells/tropovet technology.

03/10/2024

Meet a VAS superstar - Zeus the stunning Friesian ❤️. Zeus has progressed through a careful treatment and rehabilitation plan that has involved a course of PRP to manage à bilateral stifle problem that began in 2022. He returned for the collection of a further bank of PRP this week. He was a gem through a 70 minute collection to yield 320ml of prp. He enjoyed listening to alphonso the apheresis machine who is talkative (in a very soft series of clicks and whirrs until his final beepy happy dance on completion). To see Zeus in such superb shape and being part of the ongoing plan to keep him as comfortable as possible is an absolute pleasure and completely what VAS is all about. ❤️

13/09/2024

We’re in print after our abstract delivery at beva Congress in Liverpool yesterday 🙂

Click on the article title to read more.

11/09/2024

We’ve headed to BEVA Congress in Liverpool today - ready to present our initial cohort abstract: Apheresis as a method to produce multiple doses of leucoreduced platelet rich plasma for autologous regenerative medicine use in 84 UK riding horses with naturally occurring injury.
14.54 tomorrow
It’s great to be here and as always it’s thanks to the support of my co authors Dr Anne Hale and Katie Brickman.
Here’s hoping I can do the service justice and the abstract is well received. However it goes it feels like a nice achievement to be here to illustrate nearly 3 years of VAS helping some fabulous horses recover from injury ❤️

07/08/2024

Prp therapy reaching a few patients this week. A repeat treatment for Murphy the German shepherd who was first treated a year ago for elbow dysplasia. He’s been sound with no requirement for medication for 12 months (he was on pain relief injections regularly prior to his prp). His very vigilant owners and vet noted a mild lameness returning (which unfortunately is inevitable with this condition) so he received a further treatment this week. He’s still speaking to us, and is trotting around very happily post his injection so we consider that a success all round ❤️. Then we’ve been out on the road collecting from three gorgeous equine patients today. As always their stories and partnership with their owners really helps motivate our ongoing work. These horses mean the world to their owners and we feel privileged to work with them as a team effort to get them back doing what they love for as long as possible. The bonus to the week was seeing quite a few of our past patients back in sound work at the other side of treatment and rehab 🙂

04/07/2024

All set up and ready to roll for our 5th platelet apheresis patient of the week. As always we’ve met some beautiful horses and heard the stories behind them. It’s so hard for owners when their horses are injured but it’s so nice to be part of such a positive program to heal them as well as we can by incorporating regenerative medicine therapies into their treatment ❤️. It’s a huge team effort.

26/05/2024

100 Milestone celebration 🎉❤️. Meet Merlin - VAS UK’s 100th platelet apheresis candidate 🎉🎉Fittingliy Merlin epitomises the ideal candidate that VAS UK was launched for. Our aim being to offer an accessible, affordable, high quality method of collecting platelets to be used at the time of collection and as a bank for repeat administration during injury rehabilitation programmes or in case of further injury. Merlin is just 15 months old and had a growth related joint problem (OCD) in his hock that had been diagnosed and treated arthroscopically. He will undergo a course of prp injections to optimise healing. He was exceptionally well behaved for his apheresis. We were delighted to celebrate this milestone with Ridings Equine Vets where Merlin is being treated.

26/04/2024

Exciting news for VAS in our constant quest for optimum quality product, strict quality control, constant learning and evidence base for the use of our PRP products. We submitted an abstract to the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) congress to be held in Liverpool in September and yesterday while out on the road performing apheresis we had notification that it has been accepted 🙂. Lots of work now to draw all of our findings into presentation format ❤️. Huge thanks as always to my partners in crime co authors - Katie Brickman and Dr Anne Hale.

17/04/2024

03/04/2024

We’ve been quiet on social media recently but working away on lots of progress behind the scenes. However we had to take time to post a pic of this superstar apheresis candidate - Loki. We reckon his head is the size of Maria’s torso and we did have a moment of wondering whether he would fit in the stocks at ridings equine vets. He did perfectly fine and was brilliant from start to finish to collect 300ml of super quality prp. Such a lovely gentle giant of a horse. We wish him really well for his ongoing treatment and rehabilitation ❤️

10/02/2024

The stifle is prepared by repeated cleaning the way any surgical site would be. Sterile gloves are worn and a sterile needle is placed into the joint. We know it is sited in the right place when we see joint fluid at the hub or in this case flowing out of the needle. The prp that has been prepared in a closed system again using meticulous sterile technique is then injected into the joint. Pre clinical work indicates that peak response yo each injection is seen at around 6 weeks post injection. In severely inflamed cases a course of prp injections can be recommended.

10/02/2024

A busy few weeks out with horses ❤️. A little on the chilly side 😂. This is the beautiful mae who was a complete gem for her collection this week. A horselyx and reassurance from her owner kept her perfectly settled for her 40 minute procedure.

26/01/2024

Meet the lovely Dave. We visited Dave this week in Yorkshire to apherese him for a bank of platelets as he has multiple niggly arthritic joints that are making him sore and unable to be ridden. He was a superstar patient while we collected 270ml of PRP in his stable, needing no more than lots of attention and a horselyx to keep him settled. We collected his plentiful bank by apheresing 3 litres of blood in 50 minutes. A larger bank was collected so that treatments can be reached for over the coming months to try and get him back into comfortable working. A video of one of the joint injections is within the comments showing a carpal injection of prp into his joint (we know we’re in the right place when joint fluid is seen when the needle is placed into the sterile prepared site) His quality control tests revealed he yielded perfect prp. We wish him and his super patient and caring owner all the very best for his rehabilitation and a smooth return to having fun together.