HWN Suggests

A Few Things I’ve Learned on Our Journey with Retinoblastoma

Here are a few things I’ve learned on Khloe’s two and a half year journey with cancer that I’d like to share with other parents:

Don’t think that it won’t happen to you. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. It never occurred to me that cancer would hit our family. My heart would always go out to friends and other family members who were battling cancer or another serious health condition, but I never imagined it would happen to my family. Because of that, it took me a really long time to mentally process what was happening.

Be an advocate for your child. Regardless of whether your children have a serious health condition or not, learn how to be an advocate for them. It takes…

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Articles of Interest

After retinoblastoma, Finn ‘keeps on showing us what he can do’

Born at just 24 weeks, Finn and Mack had been screened for various conditions related to their early birth, including an eye disease called retinopathy of prematurity, which can lead to blindness. But when Finn was only 34 weeks old, the screening revealed an unexpected concern: retinoblastoma, a rare type of childhood eye cancer.

An In-Depth Look at Pediatric Retinoblastoma

Pediatric Retinoblastoma noticeable symptoms include a white color in the center circle of the pupil when the light is shown in the eye, such as when taking a flash photograph. This often is the scenario where parents or anyone who see the picture of the child whose eyes have glint or a glare or some other whiteness in the pupil.

Detection and Diagnosis of Retinoblastoma: Can Mobile Devices Be the Next Step Toward Early Intervention?

Retinoblastoma (RB) is a common intraocular cancer in pediatric patients worldwide, and screening is routinely performed throughout the first few years of life. The diagnosis is often made clinically; however, the diagnosis can be delayed due to undetectable leukocoria because of small tumor size at the time of examination, missed appointments, non-compliance with eye examinations, or failure to perform the exam.

How Pictures Of Infant Boy's Eyes Helped Diagnose Cancer

When Noah was 3 months old, Elizabeth noticed that sometimes when she took a flash picture of Noah with their digital camera, she would see a white reflection come back from his eyes instead of the usual red dot. She had read in a parenting magazine that this could be an early sign of retinoblastoma, so naturally as a first-time parent she assumed the worst. As husbands are wont to do, Bryan assured her she was crazy.

Potential treatment for eye cancer using tumor-killing virus

I find Carcaboso’s studies interesting and exciting, but they are still at a preliminary stage. Researchers need to do more work to understand how a patient’s immune system responds to the injected adenovirus. After all, our immune system is designed to seek out and destroy viruses before they cause harm. The size of the retinoblastoma tumor could also be a limiting factor in the favorable outcome of the injection. The ongoing clinical trials will provide more information about the safety and the healing ability of the cancer-slaying talents of these microscopic pathogens.

Retinoblastoma

Retinoblastoma is a rare cancer of the infant retina, which forms when both RB1 alleles mutate in a susceptible retinal cell, likely a cone photoreceptor precursor. Loss of the tumour suppressor functions of the retinoblastoma protein, pRB, leads to uncontrolled cell division and recurrent genomic changes during tumour progression.

Retinoblastoma, the visible CNS tumor: a review

The pediatric ocular cancer retinoblastoma is the only central nervous system tumor readily observed without specialized equipment: it can be seen by, and in, the naked eye. This accessibility enables unique imaging modalities.

Retinoblastoma: What the Neuroradiologist Needs to Know

Retinoblastoma is the most common primary intraocular tumor of childhood. Accurate diagnosis at an early stage is important to maximize patient survival, globe salvage, and visual acuity. Management of retinoblastoma is individualized based on the presenting clinical and imaging features of the tumor, and a multidisciplinary team is required to optimize patient outcomes.

Review of Retinoblastoma

Retinoblastoma is a primitive neuroectodermal intraocular malignancy that affects young children. It is the most common primary intraocular malignancy in children, frequently presenting with leukocoria.

Treatment of Retinoblastoma: What Is the Latest and What Is the Future

The management of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular malignancy in children, has changed drastically over the last decade. Landmark developments in local drug delivery, namely, safer techniques for intravitreal chemotherapy injection and ophthalmic artery chemosurgery, have resulted in eye globe salvages that were not previously attainable using systemic chemotherapy or external beam irradiation. Novel drugs, oncolytic viruses, and immunotherapy are promising approaches in the treatment of intraocular retinoblastoma.

Resources

World Eye Cancer Hope

Increasing access to specialist care will bring the promise of life and sight to every child, and improved life-long health to survivors. This is our mission.

Global Retinoblastoma Program

The Global Retinoblastoma Program is dedicated to improving survival and vision outcomes for children with retinoblastoma worldwide by building collaborations focused on education, research and capacity building.

Pediatric Retinoblastoma

Pediatric retinoblastoma is often missed during routine wellness check-ups by pediatricians. I have developed this website to build pediatric retinoblastoma awareness and to help parents identify pediatric retinoblastoma warning signs. Please share this resource with other parents, teachers, and child caregivers to help save a child's life.

The Foresight Fund for Retinoblastoma Research

The Foresight Fund for Retinoblastoma Research was started in 2022 by families impacted by retinoblastoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer. We strive to spark and support research on retinoblastoma (RB) and prevent its impact for future generations.

ACCO

Retinoblastoma is a malignancy of the retinal cell layer of the eye. It is the most common eye tumor in children and it usually occurs before the age of five. It can occur in one eye (unilateral) or in both eyes (bilateral). Retinoblastoma is usually confined to the eye and has not spread to other tissues. The present challenge for those who treat retinoblastoma is to prevent blindness and other serious effects of treatment that reduce the life span or the quality of life after treatment.

OncoLink

Retinoblastoma occurs when there is a mutation to the retinoblastoma gene (RB or RB1). This is a tumor suppressor gene that acts as a brake on cell division. This gene is present in all cells in the body. There are two copies of the RB1 gene in each cell. This gene is located on chromosome 13q. In order for retinoblastoma to occur, both copies of the gene need to have the mutation.