Therapeutic Plasma Exchange

To The Editor: The article by Shumak and Rock (March 22 issue)* is a timely review of the proved and unproved indications for therapeutic plasmapheresis. The authors were careful to discuss the criteria for determining whether a treatment approach is effective. However, in their discussion of the treatment of acute and chronic relapsing Guillain-Barré syndrome, they cite their own finding that patients with the acute syndrome are benefited by plasma exchange with reinfusion of plasma but not when the blood volume is reconstituted with albumin. This statement is made as fact, with no published data from which others may make…