Autologous blood therapy

Autohemotherapy is hemotherapy using one's own blood (auto- + hemo- + therapy). There are several kinds, the original belonging only to traditional medicine, alternative medicine, or quackery, and some newer kinds under scientific investigation but not yet well understood. The original, unscientific form is "the immediate intramuscular or subcutaneous reinjection of freshly drawn autologous blood". It was used in the early 20th century, when some physicians believed that it had efficacy and logical mechanism of action; it was abandoned later as advancing science made clear that it lacked those. In this simplest form, there is no processing involved and no refrigeration or special equipment is used—just a sterile syringe, needle, and tourniquet. Today it is alternative medicine. It is not autologous blood transfusion (which is not immediate and which has scientifically valid purposes).

The other forms involve some change to the blood before it is reinjected, typically oxygenation, ozonation (ozonated autohemotherapy), or ultraviolet light exposure. Plasmapheresis is conceptually akin but is not included; the difference is that the mechanisms of action of plasmapheresis are confirmed and well understood, whereas those of ozonated or UV autohemotherapy are not. It is not impossible that the latter types may have real efficacy and effectiveness in autoimmune diseases if they are immunomodulatory in some way (such as by interfering with the deranged autoantibodies), but this mechanism of action, if it exists, is not yet well understood.

See also

• Ozone therapy
• Discolysis