The Spanish Apheresis Group is known as GEA by its Spanish name ("Grupo Español de Aféresis"). GEA was founded in 2001 under the support of the Spanish Society of Blood Transfusion (SETS) and the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH).

The main objective of the group is to give national and international visibility for GEA, promoting the scientific study of apheresis with the help of all professionals, both physicians and nurses, involved in the care of healthy donors and patients who attend an apheresis unit. To achieve this goal, the current board of directors includes doctors and nurses with experience in donation of blood components using apheresis devices as well as therapeutic apheresis.

The third annual meeting of GEA, a hybrid in-person and virtual format, was held in Madrid, Spain, in May 8-9, 2025. As in the two previous years, the meeting had a success full attendance: 1,163 people registered, 92 attended the meeting in person, and around 550 people watched videos directly. Interestingly, for the first time, the Master Class "Josep Antoni Grifols i Lucas" was named to commemorate the Catalan doctor who, in the early 1950s, collected plasma from healthy donors using manual plasmapheresis.

GEA currently has 186 members. All people interested in this field are encouraged to join us. Sending an email to the GEA office with your data will start the process for admission.

One of the current projects of the GEA is the creation of a Spanish therapeutic apheresis database to describe the current implementation status of therapeutic procedures in our country. By doing this, we will have accessible, integrated, coherent, and up-to-date information on therapeutic apheresis procedures that hopefully, could provide a support tool for research. Another already consolidated project is the "Development of the Spanish Portuguese Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura Registry (REPTT)" where data on patients with this rare disease are collected and several scientific papers have been published.

Another summit of the GEA was the application to become a WAA member and its acceptance as such on April 9, 2025. On behalf of all members of the GEA, the board of directors thanks the WAA for this approval.

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