Radioactive discs in the eyes

Image via WikipediaJ. William Harbour, MD at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is implanting radioactive discs in the eye as a treatment option for a rare type of cancer called retinoblastoma.

Retinoblastoma, as the name suggests, is characterized by tumors in the eye's retina. It is rare, affecting about one child in 20,000. In the United States, about 200 children each year are diagnosed with it. Approximately 40 percent of them develop tumors in both eyes, so in cases where the tumors prove resistant to chemotherapy, very young children and their parents are faced with a choice between a life without eyes and a high risk of death.

"The treatment plaque looks like a bottle cap made of gold," Harbour says. "Radiation seeds are placed on one side of the plaque, shining the radiation in one direction like a flashlight focused on the tumor. That prevents the radiation from affecting other parts of the body."

"The radiation causes damage within the cancer cells that prevents them from proliferating and spreading," he says. "By the time we take off the plaque, the cancer cells are either dead or mortally wounded, even though we do not immediately see a difference in the appearance of the tumor. After the plaque therapy, as the cancer cells try to proliferate and divide, those cells die, which we then notice in follow-up exams as the tumor shrinks over time."

Posted in: Cancer, Conditions and Diseases, Retinoblastoma