Some patients are genetically prone to such dangerously high levels of cholesterol that no amount of diet, exercise and medications can reduce their cholesterol to safe levels. So Loyola University Medical Center is offering a treatment called LDL apheresis, which is similar to kidney dialysis. Once every two weeks, a patient spends two to four hours connected to an apheresis unit that removes 70-to-80 percent of the patient’s LDL (bad) cholesterol, then returns the blood to the body. The good HDL cholesterol is not removed.
