Veterinary Apheresis Service UK

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Veterinary Apheresis Service UK

Veterinary Apheresis Service UK: A bespoke mobile apheresis service to serve the Veterinary Industry

VASUK

“Banking on your horses chance of optimised healing of tendon, ligament and joint injuries”

The idea of VAS UK came about when Chance X, a much loved and very successful grassroots event horse, sustained a potentially career ending stifle injury. Through a combination of careful diagnosis, arthroscopic surgery, intra articular medical and regenerative therapy, rehabilitation and physiothe

rapy - Chance X was able to return to his eventing career and provide ongoing success and happiness to his teenage rider and supporters. His owner, Jenny Walton http://linkedin.com/in/jen-walton-3b64a234 a veterinary surgeon herself, who has a long background in veterinary blood banking founded VAS UK whilst studying for her masters in lyophilized platelet use in dogs. Dr Anne Hale http://linkedin.com/in/anne-hale-27696146 veterinary surgeon, Jenny’s mentor and sponsor for the masters - provided 30yrs of expertise in veterinary apheresis, transfusion medicine and regenerative medicine to assist in developing the programme. An injection of platelet rich plasma (prp) was used in Chance’s therapy but Jenny and Anne felt that there was a way to improve how this was sourced and utilised, due to their knowledge of apheresis technology. The consideration that prp could also be stored as lysate if collected in appropriate quantities, allowed the idea of an individual horses “bank” of multiple regenerative injections to be collected during one event from that horse that could be used over the coming months/years. Apheresis allows the collection of an autologous, increased and more reliable concentration (compared to most low volume whole blood filtration and centrifugation methods), red cell white cell- reduced, aseptically prepared platelet product. In a 45min event around 200ml of PRP is collected from an individual horse. Post collection, a specially designed separation system developed by veterinary and human blood bankers (Innovative animal supplies - IAS) allows the sterile preparation of 15 aliquot doses of 10-25ml. Quantities can be tailored to the treating vets requirement. A prp injection can be used immediately intra-lesion (such as a tendon tear) or into the joint of an injured horse. The additional aliquots are frozen between -20/80°c for 2-5yrs depending on storage conditions and the injury being managed. Freezing results in the PRP becoming equine platelet lysate which contains the platelet proteome (content) which is considered beneficial in creating the healing environment that we look for in regenerative medicine. With injury injections in horses standardly being between 4-10ml, this process allows at least 15 separate treatments per horse.

11/11/2025

Just a little update on one of our small animal patients treated at . Rodney - the greyhound was suffering from painful wrists and had a course of prp injections. He’s shown a really positive response with abscence of lameness, normalisation of his joint fluid, increased range of motion, and a return to joyful play that prior to treatment he had stopped doing. We hope Rodney has now has years of zoomies ahead ❤️

20/10/2025

Meet Boris 🥰. Boris is a 4 year old Dutch new forest pony x ID, stunning dappled palomino. He had his suspensory ligaments treated and a bank of prp collected for ongoing management on Friday. His prp was nice and rich showing an 8x concentration from his circulating platelet count. He really enjoyed making light work of a mint horselyx while his conscious procedure was carried out. As you can see by the photos he’s a cheeky boy who liked to have a good look at what “was occurring” 😂🙂 We were especially delighted with his enjoyment of the treat as his mom had sourced and donated a handle to hold the horselyx which is 1. More comfortable to hold 2. Easier for the horse to access the lick and 3. Prevents all the team performing the apheresis from being painted in sticky horselyx. Thank you Jayne 🥰

19/10/2025

Meet Parker, Parker is a 26 year old thoroughbred who has lameness associated with OA in his stifles. Parker joined us last Friday to have a bank of prp collected - 300ml in 76 minutes to be precise. His quality control assessments were fabulous for a horse of his age, his prp had a concentration of 916 x10 9/l which equates to 0.9 billion platelets per ml. The stifle in the horse has 3 compartments and he received treatment into all three compartments of both stifles.
The stifle and the shoulder are the two joints in humans receiving the most attention concerning the efficacy of prp at reducing pain. Current recommendations are developing suggesting that pure prp (prp without red or white cell content) and a finite number of 10 billion platelets into the stifle joint in people is associated with better outcomes. We’re pleased to report that we can emulate these treatment goals in horses using apheresis technology. We’ll be following Parker’s progress as we do all of the cases treated by apheresis prp.

17/10/2025

Back to horses this week. Here’s a pic of our time in the lab after the session testing those horses baseline bloods and prp for content. 5 fabulous horses progressed through conscious prp collection for treatment of a broad spectrum of MSK issues including, stifles,carpii, tendon sheath and suspensory ligaments.
Collections of prp take 45 to 100 minutes depending on the volume requested by the treating vet. One of our lovely patients actually took a snooze during apheresis 🥰
VAS doesn’t stop at collection and dose provision on the day. 150-400ml of prp is collected and split into a bank of up to 30 additional doses that are stored frozen and used to repeat treatment the same or a different injury in the horse.
The lovely thing about this week, two of the horses we apheresed belong to owners who have used VAS before and been happy with the results so opted for the same service for another horse in their family ❤️. That really meant a lot to us at this stage in the service’s journey.

05/10/2025

Meet the lovely Rodney. Rodney is illustrated here receiving intra articular platelet rich plasma (PRP) treatment into his carpal (wrist joints). His owners noticed lameness and on examination he was found to have early onset osteoarthritis (OA) and was quite sore on flexion with a reduced range of motion. He is only 4 and we wanted to perform a course of PRP to reduce the symptoms and allow him to be comfortable without starting a lifetime of daily medication at such a young age. With Rodney only needing very low volume injections for this indication, we decided to use our tube system for his therapy. He’s responding really well and has returned to enjoying zoomies in the garden that he had stopped doing as he was sore.
We use both apheresis and (demonstrated here) methods to harvest autologous PRP depending on patient and client requirements. Jenny - VAS director works at Washington Vetsforpets alongside running VAS, so is pictured here performing both the generation and the administration side of PRP therapy. VAS is designed to work hand in hand with vets as a mobile service for horses, dogs and other species and we’re always happy to chat to anyone interested in using the service or vets who would like to set up to do it themselves. It’s an exciting and rapidly developing area of both human and veterinary medicine, that can make a very large difference to quality of life of recipients when it is utilised appropriately.

06/09/2025

Every VAS patient receives individual test results for PRP compared to baseline whole blood assessment at the time of collection, whether kit based or apheresis. Autologous prp should in our opinion always be tested as it is hugely variable in content. This allows tailored advice to be given concerning treatment regimes and injection volumes.

05/09/2025

This beautiful mare is Magma. She was exemplary today for an hour long procedure to collect 480ml prp in order to treat her bilateral stifle issues with a course of treatment alongside a carefully developed rehab plan. Well done Magma it was very lovely to meet you ❤️. Video in the comments of her platelet swirl - our first quality assessment prior to full analysis back at the lab.

04/09/2025

Today saw a combination of autologous prp techniques for our equine recipients. Autologous use of prp presents many considerations but we’ve found ways to make the most out of every situation. Pure prp collected by apheresis will continue to be our method of choice in dogs over 25kg and horses to make the most of both fresh prp and cost effective banked prp for repeated use, but if horses have a lower than normal pcv and dogs and cats are small we’re happy to use our Tropovet systems for neutrophil and red cell depleted, monocyte and lymphocyte rich prp. Contact us for more detail if you’re intrigued.

20/08/2025

Watch the video to see ultrasound guided prp administration at Zia pet hospital in New Mexico. Regenerative medicine in action. Getting injured dogs the anti inflammatory and healing properties of prp right to the heart of their injuries to optimise and speed healing and reduce pain.

17/08/2025

A learning opportunity in New Mexico. Repeat IV stem cell infusion in a dog that has had severe disc prolapse and spinal surgery. Great to learn new things and perhaps see into the future ….

16/08/2025

A différent weekend this weekend. Honored to be speaking at this conference in the US. Lecturing on past experience in blood banking and thén enjoying sharing some thoughts on veterinary apheresis and platelets alongside Anne Hale our founding consultant.

06/08/2025

After digesting a wide range of recently published literature looking at prp treatment of stifle OA in people, we’re recommending consideration of equine stifle compartment injections containing 5-10 billion platelets. With 4-6 compartments to treat in bilaterally affected horses - this truly brings apheresis as a method of harvesting prp for stifle treatment into a league of its own.
In the mean time - this picture from today’s equine prp harvest still leads to excitement when you can so easily see such amazing « swirl »

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