Benign Hematology Diagnosis and Treatment

Your medical history, a physical examination, blood testing, and laboratory analysis all help to diagnose hematologic disorders.

Our hematologists and hematopathologists examine a sample of your blood under a microscope to analyze red cell, white cell and platelet morphology (shape). Sometimes additional tests, such as a bone marrow biopsy, may be necessary.

Our physicians are especially skilled at discerning benign blood diseases from underlying cancer-related hematologic conditions, and then tailoring care accordingly.

Interventions for benign hematologic disorders may involve:

• Watchful waiting to monitor symptom progression
• Oral or intravenous medications
• Injections, including vitamin B12 or coagulation factors
• Blood transfusions: red cell, plasma or platelet
• Therapeutic phlebotomy to remove units of blood at specific intervals
• Apheresis, a mechanical apparatus similar to dialysis that filters, separates and returns blood to the patient, but after removing white blood cells, platelets or plasma depending upon the diagnosis. Apheresis is similar to photopheresis, another procedure that physicians use to treat certain patients with a leukemia-like phase of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Photopheresis removes and treats the blood with drugs that are activated by ultraviolet light to target the white blood cells. The blood is then returned to the patient.

Doctors may treat certain benign, but severe, hematologic disorders with bone marrow or stem cell transplantation, or with surgery to remove the spleen.

Treatment for cancers of the blood, bone marrow and lymphatic system may involve complex chemotherapy, bone marrow or stem cell transplantation, and/or surgery.