Welcome to the SUNY Downstate Pediatric Sickle Cell Program website. 

For many years we at SUNY have advocated a comprehensive approach to health education and treatment of children with sickle cell disease. Each year, 15-25 infants are newly diagnosed at our hospitals and introduced to comprehensive care, counseling and education, and many are followed for the remainder of their pediatric lives. Much of this care has been guided and supplemented by clinical research, both locally and as part of multi-institutional clinical trials.  In the past, SUNY researchers have contributed to a number of publications related to sickle cell disease; Dr.'s Margaret Robinson and Janet Watson were the first to describe the increased  susceptibility of individuals with sickle cell disease to pneumococcal meningitis.  More recently, SUNY-Downstate participated in the Cooperative Study of Sickle Cell Disease, a project extending from 1978 through 1999 designed to document the "natural history" of sickle cell disease and sponsored by the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Instates of Health. Numerous important publications have resulted from the efforts of all involved. In 2000, CSSCD investigators reported that early manifestations of sickle cell disease may be used to predict severe complications later in childhood.  Awareness of these factors helps doctors determine which children may most appropriately be considered for, or excluded from, a number of recently available, but potentially dangerous, treatments.  Click for a list of publications by current faculty; Dr. Miller is particularly proud of his paper published in Blood, "How I Treat Acute Chest Syndrome in Children with Sickle Cell Disease."

Links provided have been chosen as likely to be of interest to visitors to this page, but their listing does not necessarily imply endorsement of their content by Dr. Miller, SUNY, or any other entity or individual.

Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998 by Scott T. Miller