What Is Eye Cancer?
Eye cancer is a relatively rare malignancy which occurs in the eyes. It can be divided into eyelid cancer and intraocular cancer according to the sites. Generally, it occurs in a single eye first and subsequently spread to another eye. Its incidence varies in different age.
What Are the Causes of Eye Cancer?
Eye cancer is usually caused by genetic factors or genetic mutations of the patients themselves. Other predisposing factors may include: achromia at the margin of the eyelid; long-tern sun exposure, especially for intense UV radiation; malnutrition and so on.
What Are the Symptoms of Eye Cancer?
1. Patients’ eyelid usually has obvious mass which affects their range of visions when the cancer happens in the eyelid. In serious cases, mass broken or ulceration may occur.
2. When tumors appear inside the eyes, they are usually retinoblastoma and choroidal melanoma with symptoms mainly manifested as ocular high pressure, eye pain, headache and poor eye sight.
3. Orbital tumors, such as lacrimal tumor and optic nerve glioma, generally show symptoms as eye pain accompanied by tears, proptosis or eye movement disorders and decreased eye sights.
4. Once there appears blurred vision or there is abnormal mass in the eye, one should go to the regular hospital for professional examination promptly. Early detection and early treatment are the basic principles for eye cancer treatment.
What Are the Diagnosis Method for Thyroid Cancer?
When having an examination for eye cancer, patient should actively cooperate with doctor and tell when, where and how the abnormity develops in the eyes. It is also very important to tell whether there is family history of this disease.
1. Professional ophthalmologic examination: doctors mainly check the location, size, shape, hardness, tenderness of the tumor and the adjacent tissue adhesion in the eyelids and orbits. Also, auscultation on noise near the eyelids and orbits should be done. In addition, doctors have to check if there are local and distant metastases. If necessary, related doctors should be invited to have a combined consultation to distinguish if the tumor is a primary or metastatic one.
2. Check the eyesight, range of vision, direction and degree of the proptosis, movements of the eyes, pressure of the eyes, and fundus of the eyes in all sides. Have a scleral transillumination or radionuclide determination of 32P, or type B ultrasonic examination in a pinch.
3. Have an X-ray examination for the orbital bone and optic foramen. If economic condition is permitted, have an orbital venography, CT scan, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
4. Have a general examination, and check the liver and renal function if it is necessary.
5. Do a biopsy if possible.
What Are the Treatments for Eye Cancer?
Like other cancers, treatments for eye cancer include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Common Treatments for Eye Cancer
Surgical excision is the most commonly used method for eye cancer treatment. In serious cases, it may remove the whole eyeball to eliminate the tumor.
Cryotherapy, also known as “Argon-Helium Knife”, is a very important ablation technology. By quickly freezing and heating the tumor tissue, it will lead the tumors to coagulation necrosis, so as to kill the cancer cells.
Applying x-ray, γ-ray, cable and electron beam to irradiate cancer tissue can maximally kill cancer cells and destroy tumor tissue.
Chemotherapy applies chemical drugs to kill cancer cells or inhibit cancer cell growth or reproduction. While it eliminates cancer cells effectively, it kills normal cells and immune cells at the same time, which brings patients obvious side effects such as nausea and vomit. Presently, local chemotherapy has been put into clinical use with interventional chemotherapy to cure the patients based on their individual condition. According the clinical statistics of Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou, interventional chemotherapy can improve patients’ therapeutic effect and reduce their discomfort greatly.
5. Biological Immunotherapy
Biological immunotherapy is a new treatment which uses the body's immune system to fight cancer. By increase immunocyte amount and transfusing them back into patient’s body, it can strengthen human body’s immunity to kill cancer cells or inhabit cancer cell growth or reproduction. The major function of biological immunotherapy is not to kill all cancer cells, but to cooperate with other treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, so as to prevent cancer from recurrence and metastasis and improve patients’ living quality as well as their survival time.
The Best Treatment for Eye Cancer
Eye cancer treatment varies in different stages. So far, traditional treatments for eye cancer mainly include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In additional, combined therapy of traditional Chinese medicines and Western medicines is also one of the best treatments for eye cancer. Chinese medicine treatment can strengthen the body resistance, regulate respiration and circulation system and enhance immune function. When combined with surgery, it can help realize a quicker recovery, reduce the pain and toxicity by chemotherapy or radiotherapy, improve the life quality of patients and prolong their survival time.
According to experts from Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou, traditional monotherapy’s therapeutic effect is relatively weak, and it has obvious drawbacks too. For instance, traditional chemotherapy or radiotherapy not only kills cancer cells, but normal cells as well, which leads to the decrease of leucocytes and immunity function. In Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou, doctors will apply a combination of minimally invasive treatments such as interventional therapy, radioactive particle implantation and cryotherapy based on patient’s individual condition. Therefore, it can not only avoid the side effects mentioned above, but bring the patients smaller wounds and fewer side effects like nausea and vomit.
How to Prevent Eye Cancer?
1. There is no measure to protect children from eye cancer, but pregnant women can pay attention to a healthy diet and avoid radiation, so as to protect the fetus from the cancer.
2. Normal adults should pay more attention to eye health and go to hospital for regular eye examination.
Disclaimer: Therapeutic effect depends on individual patient's condition. The content of this website is for informational purpose only,this can not be the basis of medical diagnosis and treatment and even can not replace the diagnosis and treatment from doctors.Please refer to Terms and Condition for more information.