News

The Columbia Thyroid Biopsy Program is a leader in addressing multi-nodular thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. It offers same-day onsite evaluations, with surgeons coordinating with cytopathologists to minimize the number of biopsies required to get definitive results.

At NYP/Columbia, general thoracic surgeon Frank D’Ovidio, MD, PhD, is collaborating with gastroentereologists David Markowitz, MD and Daniela Jodorkovsky, MD, to help patients with complex esophago-gastro-intestinal motility disorders. A wide range of services is now offered by a panel of experts at the Center for Motility and Neurogastroenterology, one of a few such programs in the nation.

NYP/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital has received $100,000 grant from The Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma to study fluid management for critically ill pediatric trauma patients. “Traditionally resuscitation of these patients has involved high VOLUME fluid administration, yet recent studies suggest that restricting fluids may be beneficial,” says Vincent Duron, MD, Principal Investigator of this study. “Our goal is to establish guidelines for this situation."

Recently Columbia oncologists diagnosed a toddler with acute myelogenous leukemia, and thanks to The Sohn Foundation for Precision Medicine, the entire family underwent genetic testing. Three of his siblings were found to have a gene linked to thyroid cancer. Their father was the carrier. Dr. Kuo found a suspicious thyroid nodule in his neck and with ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy diagnosed medullary thyroid cancer, a rare and aggressive form of this disease. She operated the following week. “With our early intervention,” she says, “there is a very good chance that the father has been completely cured and will remain cancer-free.”

B. Payne Stanifer, MD, MPH, joins the Department of Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery as of August 14, 2017. He completed his fellowship as the chief fellow in thoracic surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL where he trained under Drs. Malcolm DeCamp and Patrick McCarthy in thoracic and cardiac surgery.

Damien J. LaPar, MD, MSc, has joined the Section of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in the Division of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery at the NYP/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center and Weill-Cornell Medical Center.

May address depression, prevent major health problems

The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at NYP/Columbia has created a new program to help pediatric liver transplant patients transition to adult care.

The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation (CLDT) in collaboration with pediatric surgery at NYP/Columbia is making noteworthy advances in the care of children with serious liver conditions, and is a national leader in this field. “Our superior outcomes are the result of unique surgical training, high patient volume, and unsurpassed multidisciplinary collaboration,” says Jean C. Emond, MD, Chief of Transplantation Services at Columbia. “The CLDT brings together leading experts hepatobiliary surgery, hepatology, gastroenterology, oncology, radiology, diagnostic testing and pathology to provide exceptional patient care.”

Columbia’s Carmen and John Thain Center for Prenatal Pediatrics is now offering fetal intervention to repair myelomeningocele, a form of spina bifida associated with a wide range of complications including early death, paralysis, and bowel and bladder dysfunction. Prenatal intervention has been shown to significantly improve myelomeningocele outcomes by decreasing the need for cerebrospinal fluid shunting and improving motor function.