Blood Disorders

Close up of nurse disinfecting male arm before blood test.

Blood Disorders

Benign Hematology

ColumbiaDoctors’ highly personalized care of adults and children with blood disorders includes the expert services of specialist faculty physicians, nurses, scientists, and staff, who care for patients with bleeding, blood marrow, vascular, and endovascular disorders, as well as those with cancer.

All of our patients receive care from integrated, multidisciplinary teams that feature physicians versed in state-of-the-art treatments. Our hematologists use of pioneering technologies, such as our state-of-the-art Special Hematology Laboratory and the Laboratory of Personalized Genomic Medicine to diagnose our patients, including those with very rare blood disorders, and to create appropriate treatment programs tailored to each patient, as well as access to the most state-of-the-art clinical trials. In addition to primary treatment of our patients’ disorders, our hematologists include expert management of patients’ symptoms and complications, and they have access to all the additional ColumbiaDoctors specialists and treatments as needed.

All of ColumbiaDoctors hematologists are affiliated Columbia University’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC), one of only 45 institutions in the United States and only two in New York City recognized as a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Our ColumbiaDoctors Pediatric Hematologists are all affiliated with the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital (NYPMSCH), one of the first programs of its kind in the United States, and currently nationally ranked in more pediatric specialties than any other hospital in the New York metropolitan area. ColumbiaDoctors’ Pediatric Hematology currently cares for more than 500 patients with acute and chronic hematologic (blood) disorders, including anemia, bleeding disorders, blood vessel abnormalities, bone marrow failure syndromes, clotting disorders, hemoglobinopathies, sickle cell disease, and thalassemias.

Our ColumbiaDoctors practices are conveniently located at the Herbert Irving Pavilion in Washington Heights, as well as in midtown Manhattan and other sites within New York City and Westchester County, offering seamless care for patients visiting our offices or requiring hospital stays within the Columbia University Irving Medical Center network.

Our combined expertise and resources as New York’s No. 1 hospital and top National Institutes of Health-funded research center permit our patients to receive the best blood disorder care possible. We accept new patients as well as those referred to us by outside physicians for our specialty areas, including:

Anemia

ColumbiaDoctors provide care for patients with anemia, a collection of some 400 conditions that depletion of red blood cells or insufficient hemoglobin, which hinders the transport of oxygen in the body. Anemia may be caused by blood loss, by diminished or imperfect red blood cell production (including the inherited blood disorder thalassemia), and by damage to red blood cells (such as sickle cell anemia, hereditary spherocytosis, G6PD deficiency, and autoimmune hemolytic anemia.) Our experts in hematology (the study of blood) work collaboratively with other specialists to determine the origin of our patients’ anemias and then develop personalized approaches for treatment, which can include bone marrow transplantation.

Bone Marrow Failure Syndromes

ColumbiaDoctors provide expert care to our patients diagnosed with bone marrow failure, which depletes the body’s red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Our supportive, interdisciplinary team offers personalized treatment programs that manage our patients’ disorders with transfusions of red blood cells and platelets while also addressing the underlying conditions contributing to bone marrow failure, including chemotherapies, immunotherapy, hormonal therapy, and, if needed, stem cell transplants.

Clotting Disorders

ColumbiaDoctors offers treatments to patients with clotting or coagulation blood disorders, including those with hereditary causes, acquired due to medication side effects or resulting from conditions like cancer. These bleeding disorders include hemophilia and Von Willebrand disease, both rare disorders in which the blood ability to clot is impaired, as well as such platelet disorders as immune thrombocytopenia (ITP, also called idiopathic thrombocytopenia, in which the immune system targets platelets and reduces their number), thrombocytosis (high platelet counts), and thrombocytopathy (abnormal platelet function). 

Sickle Cell Disease

The St. Giles Comprehensive Sickle Cell and Thalassemia Center at Columbia provides our pediatric patients diagnosed with sickle cell disease and thalassemia a comprehensive, family-centered care program. We offer the best evidence-based treatments, including early recognition of risks for preventable complications as well as offering support to help our patients and their families with management of their illness. Our community-focused program in Harlem, northern Manhattan, and the tri-state area includes newborn screening in sickle cell disease, stroke prevention, chronic transfusion and iron-chelating therapy, pain management, community outreach, and patient education.