treatment

Biting into the Elephant

I believe that a story is the shortest distance between two people. While this is my story, it is not just mine, and I did not do any of this alone. In April 1983, my husband Joe and I were 25 years old and attending to the required pre-marital blood work. Next thing we knew, we were sitting in a doctor’s office because my blood counts were abnormally low. They told us there was something wrong, but they didn’t know what it was.

Lukasz Gondek, M.D., Ph.D.

Institution
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Physician Status
accepting new patients
Primary Disease Area of Focus
Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS)
About
Dr. Gondek is a current Evans Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Oncology, working with Dr. Amy Dezern on research related to signaling pathways in MDS stem cells. Dr. Gondek explained that the mechanism of progression in MDS is poorly understood, and he hopes through his work to clarify some of the factors that contribute to progression. He is the Principal Investigator on one pilot project currently underway within the MDS Clinical Research Consortium, working with a particular signaling pathway named the Hedgehog pathway. Dr. Gondek describes the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway

David Margolis, MD

Institution
Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin
Physician Status
accepting new patients
Primary Disease Area of Focus
Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
Aplastic Anemia
Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS)
Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH)
Pediatric
About
David Margolis, MD, received his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989. He is currently a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, located in Milwaukee, and is program director of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin’s Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Program. His clinical and research interests include taking care of children and young adults with aplastic anemia as well as alternative donor blood and bone marrow transplants for children and young adults with aplastic anemia, sickle cell anemia and leukemia.

Blood Transfusion Safety and Risks

Negative side effects of blood transfusion therapy are uncommon. Blood banks, hospitals, and health-care providers take many precautions to minimize risks before each blood transfusion.

Blood banks test each unit of blood to find out its ABO type and Rh status. In the United States, after a hospital laboratory receives a blood unit from the blood bank, the laboratory tests the unit again.

 

Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD

Institution
Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center
Physician Status
accepting new patients
Primary Disease Area of Focus
Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
Aplastic Anemia
Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS)
Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN)
About
My main academic and clinical objective is to, if not cure, at least contribute to significantly better outcomes for patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS). I am the Chief of the Section of MDS in the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center. I have built this into the largest clinical program of its class. One hundred percent of my research and clinical effort is devoted to patients with MDS.

Aristoteles Giagounidis MD

Institution
Marien Hospital, Düsseldorf, Germany
Physician Status
accepting new patients
Primary Disease Area of Focus
Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS)
Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN)
About
Aristoteles Giagounidis is Head of the Department of Oncology, Haematology, and Palliative Care at Marien Hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany. After earning his medical degree in 1992 from Eberhard-Karls-University in Tübingen, Germany, Dr Giagounidis was house officer at the Withybush General Hospital in Haverfordwest, Wales, and at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent, UK. He then served as resident physician at the Haematology/Oncology Department of Heinrich-Heine- University in Düsseldorf, where he became board certified in 1999. Due to his special expertise in haematological cytology

Amer Zeidan, MBBS

Institution
Yale University and Yale Cancer Center
Physician Status
accepting new patients
Primary Disease Area of Focus
Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
Aplastic Anemia
Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS)
Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN)
Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH)
About
Amer Zeidan’s primary research interest is in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and was mentored in this research area by Dr. Steven Gore and Dr. B Douglas Smith at Johns Hopkins University where he has completed a clinical hematology/oncology fellowship and a clinical research fellowship in myelodysplastic syndromes. He also earned a Master of Health Science (MHS) degree in Clinical Investigation at Johns Hopkins before recently moving to Yale University as an Assistant Professor of Medicine to reunite with Dr. Steven Gore and continue his MDS research. Dr. Zeidan has two major areas of
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