What is a Retinoblastoma?
A retinoblastoma is a type of cancer that is located within the eyes. This particular type of cancer originates in and grows in the back of the eyes.
A retinoblastoma tumor grows from the retina, which is the part of the eye responsible for capturing light and producing vision.
Who is Mostly Affected by Retinoblastomas?
In the majority of cases, retinoblastomas are identified in children. Frequently, these tumors are found in early eye exams and may be present at birth or develop within the first few years of life.
Since the tumors generally affect very young children, there are few symptoms that are present, and the tumors are most often found on a routine screening or because the parents have noticed reduced vision in one or both eyes.
While it is most common in children, retinoblastomas can form in teenager or adults as well, but it is far less common as nearly all retinoblastomas are diagnosed by the age of 5.
How to Determine if a Retinoblastoma is Present
In children, reduced vision may not elicit a complaint due to an inability of the young infant to verbalize a complaint, but children born with a retinoblastoma often adapt to the vision that they have and do not know that there is a problem.
To identify a retinoblastoma, or other disease of the eye, it is important to have routine eye exams. Many optometrists will begin seeing children as young as six months to one year to screen for diseases such as retinoblastomas.
A common presentation is a white pupil when a light is shown into the eye, called leukocoria. Eye doctors are trained that this presentation in children is highly concerning for the presence of an intraocular retinoblastoma.
While other causes of leukocoria in children exist, the most prominent and serious is retinoblastoma.
A dilated eye exam can confirm the presence of a retinoblastoma in one or both eyes.
How to Treat a Retinoblastoma
A retinoblastoma is a very serious condition and needs immediate treatment after it is diagnosed.
Treatment for a retinoblastoma is aimed at three goals: save the life, save the eye, and save the vision.
The treatment will vary depending on the case but may consist of radiation localized to the tumor within the eye, chemotherapy targeting the eye that is affected, or removal of the eye that is affected.
In the most severe cases, the eye will be removed, or enucleated, to remove the risk of the tumor spreading to the brain or rest of the body.
In less severe cases, radiation and chemotherapy may be used together or separately to preserve the health of the eyeball itself and perhaps preserve some vision in the affected eye.
Blindness from Retinoblastoma
A retinoblastoma is not an immediate guarantee of total blindness in the eye that has the tumor, but the risk of blindness is very high.
Since the tumor can metastasize and spread throughout the body, removing the eye entirely is frequently the treatment for this tumor and would result in total loss of vision.
There are other, more favorable, outcomes, such as retaining functional vision, which are possible especially with early detection of the retinoblastoma.
It is very important to have children evaluated by an eye care professional rather than just screened at a school or pediatrician’s office to detect severe diseases like retinoblastoma.
