Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Kanti R. Rai, M.D.
Division of Hematology/Oncology
New Hyde Park, NY
(718) 470-7135

 

Long Island Jewish Medical Center

New Patient Registration

New patients should contact Susan Mrwik at (718) 470-7135 to request an appointment. Prior to your appointment, you will be contacted in order to review insurance coverage and to obtain additional information. Please have your insurance card and referral information available.

Kanti R. Rai, M.D.

Dr. Rai's major interest is in understanding the natural history of low-grade lymphoid malignancies, such as chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and in devising improved therapies of hematological malignancies, especially CLL and acute myelocytic leukemia.

CLL is the most common adult leukemia in the western hemisphere. The disease predominantly affects the elderly population and is known to follow divergent clinical courses. Some patients survive especially long periods after diagnosis, whereas others die in a much shorter period of time. The clinical prognostic stratification of CLL, originally proposed by us and known as the Rai staging system, has provided a valuable clinical framework around which to classify patients and build therapeutic decisions. Moving beyond the clinical criteria and exploiting modern molecular biology techniques, Dr. Rai and his team of investigators are currently collaborating with Dr. Nicholas Chiorazzi to study the potential of immunoglobulin variable region gene mutation status and of CD38 expression as additional prognostic indicators.