New Group Supports Innovative Treatments and Research

Children's Hospital of New York (CHONY) has established the Vascular Anomalies Group (VAG), for the convenience of patients in the New York metropolitan area. The VAG brings together the multidisciplinary specialists — pediatric experts in surgery, plastic surgery, hematology, interventional radiology, dermatology, cardiology, oncology, radiology, and orthopedics-necessary to treat these complex lesions, which affect some 10 percent of all newborns and which include hemangiomas and lymphatic and venous malformations. Some of these anomalies are associated with Wilm's tumor and solid abdominal tumors. Dr. Jessica J. Kandel, Irving Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Pediatric Surgery, is coordinator of the VAG.

Vascular anomalies vary greatly in severity; in some cases, they may cause serious systemic disorders affecting the heart, liver, and other organs. Thus, treatment modalities vary greatly as well, ranging from outpatient management with medication, to interventional radiology, surgery, or chemotherapy, to multidisciplinary intervention in an intensive care unit. Columbia University Medical Center's Vascular Anomalies Group meets at a monthly clinic, where individual cases are reviewed and courses of treatment are discussed. If warranted, the group applies advanced diagnostic techniques and chemotherapy regimens to treat vascular anomalies. Moreover, the VAG is committed to keeping referring physicians apprised of their patients' treatment protocols and status.

The VAG incorporates education and research missions, in an effort to shed light on the biomolecular processes behind these little understood phenomena. In addition, Columbia University Medical Center has established a dedicated Vascular Anomalies Fellowship, which we hope will foster research revealing the links between the clinical behaviors of these mysterious lesions and the molecular signals detected at different stages in each tumor.