• Hematology Oncology Services
• Blood Disorder Services
• Medical Oncology Services
• Cancer Services

• American Board of Internal Medicine, Hematology [Internal Medicine]
• American Board of Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology [Internal Medicine]

• English

• Associate Professor — Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, UCI School of Medicine

Dr. Catherine C. Coombs is a board-certified UCI Health hematologist and oncologist who specializes in the management of a hematologic malignancies.

Her primary expertise is chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL), which has been her research focus for more than a decade as a principal investigator of numerous clinical trials of novel agents that have improved the care of these patients.

Coombs earned her medical degree at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., followed by a fellowship in hematology and oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

She comes to UCI Health and the UCI School of Medicine after serving on the faculty at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she spent six years developing a CLL program before relocating to Southern California to be closer to family.

Coombs' research is devoted to developing new drugs and novel drug combinations to treat CLL. She also has an interest in precursor conditions that can lead to blood cancers, including monoclonal B cell lymphocytosis, clonal cytopenia of undetermined significance and clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential.

She sees patients in Orange.