Ilya Laufer, MD

I am a fellowship-trained neurosurgeon specializing in the disorders of the spine. As a member of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Spine Tumor Center, my goal is to provide comprehensive care for all patients with spinal disorders. I specialize in the surgical treatment of primary and metastatic spinal tumors and in the treatment of degenerative spinal disorders. My goal is to use modern surgical and radiation techniques in order to effectively prevent or reduce back pain and neurological deficits that the oncologic patient population may experience.

Primary bone tumors of the spine include sarcoma, chordoma, chondrosarcoma, giant cell tumor, osteoid osteoma, osteoblastoma, aneurysmal bone cyst, multiple myeloma and plasmacytoma. Metastatic tumors may travel to the spine from any part of the body. Our team specializes in developing an individualized plan of treatment for each patient with a spinal tumor in order to achieve durable tumor control and relief of symptoms. These treatments include a combination of preoperative and postoperative radiation, preoperative arterial embolization in order to decrease blood loss, cement injection, intra-arterial chemotherapy, various tumor excision and spinal reconstruction techniques, and intraoperative irradiation of the tumor margin. I specialize in the surgical excision of the spine tumors, spinal cord decompression and complex spinal reconstruction techniques.