Retinoblastoma - Eye Cancer in Young Children

Hopefully by increasing the awareness of this disease, it will help to save more lives... of young children. This blog entry was also posted in my other blog Try To Be Healthy.


Early this year, I read about Retinoblastoma in the Reader's Digest magazine. It is a true story where two ladies became good friends over the Internet before they delivered their babies, and continued to share with each other their parenting experience. One day, one of them read about Retinoblastoma and recalled that she had seen the symptom in some pictures of her friend's baby - where the eye pupil appears white (or red). She quickly informed the friend and the child's life was saved. I thought it was quite a touching story.

Just a few weeks ago, a friend informed me that his toddler was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma at a late stage on one of her eyes and went for surgery to have her eye ball removed. I was very shocked and at the same time felt very sad. He was surprised that I knew what is Retinoblastoma as not many people are aware of this. If someone had observed the symptoms earlier on this little girl, it could have saved her from sacrificing one eye. This is why I decided to share information on this disease.

According to Wikipedia, Retinoblastoma happens about 1 in 15,000 children (rare, but it does happen to someone I know!), usually from 0-5 years old. Bilateral cases (both eyes are infected) are usually diagnosed within the first year, while unilateral cases (single eye is infected) at 2 years old. The symptoms of this disease include
- the pupil appears white (or red), similar to what we sometimes see in digital photos
- squint / crossed eyes
- deterioration of vision (very difficult to tell for young children)

90% of the patients have no family history of the disease. A patient may lose vision because the tumour develops in the cell of retina. Depending on the situation, surgery, laser treatment and common cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy may be needed. Although it is a very treatable cancer with one of the best cure rates (95-98%) of all childhood cancers, early detection is still the key as in all cancer diseases.

Tell someone today. You may save precious life.