When Dr. Mitchell Cairo first segued into the treatment of blood disorders and pediatric cancer, the cure rate was about 20 percent.
About 30 years later, that number has soared to 80 percent.
Cairo was just recruited by Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla to lead the clinical pediatric hematology and oncology division and to develop a comprehensive, research-based Children and Adolescent Cancer and Blood Disease Center.
“We are in the generation of cure,” he said. “The success we”™ve had in children”™s leukemia and lymphoma is now being adopted by adult oncologists. To be able to participate in this generation change over the last quarter century has probably been one of the most exciting times in medicine. The science of the field was very attractive to me.”
Cairo comes to the hospital with a $3 million Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation grant and with 13 physician staffers, who will be employed at New York Medical College and in the hospital.
More research and clinical grants are in the process of being funded, Cairo said.
Most recently, Cairo served as director of pediatric blood and bone marrow transplantation at New York-Presbyterian”™s Morgan Stanley Children”™s Hospital.
Cairo is involved in international research of cancer and stem cell transplantation and has authored more than a dozen clinical research studies.
“There are more than 85,000 patients in the U.S. alone who have sickle cell disease,” Cairo said. “We”™re already beginning to use gene therapy for treating certain immune deficiencies or certain bone marrow failure disorders. Once we understand the genetics, then we can understand why the cells become defective.”
Going beyond a palliative approach to curing chronic blood disorders and genetic conditions, Westchester Medical Center has begun construction on a 3,600-square-foot Stem and Cellular Therapy and Engineering Laboratory, which will cost $2 million to construct.
It should be operational within six months to a year, Cairo said, and will serve as a vital clinical component of the Children and Adolescent Cancer and Blood Disease Center and for Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College.
“It will mean designing cells that can directly kill cancer cells, viruses, microorganisms ”¦ and to develop the stem cell we”™d use for regenerative cell therapy for all diseases.”
Also undergoing final construction is the 13,500-square-foot Ronald McDonald House of the Greater Hudson Valley on hospital grounds.
The $5.5-million facility with furnishings provided by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. is “pretty much complete,” said Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital Spokesman Andrew LaGuardia, and said they are eyeing an opening next month.
Operated by Ronald McDonald House Charities, the facility will provide accommodations for the families of children being treated at the hospital in the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.
