For years, researchers have sought an avenue to deliver chemotherapy directly to retinoblastoma tumors – cancers of the retina of the eye, which primarily affect children under age 5. It turns out that the body itself offers just such a route.
Physicians at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center offer a procedure in which retinoblastoma patients receive potent doses of chemotherapy directly through the main artery that channels blood to the eye. The technique, pioneered in Japan and refined in the United States, may improve the chances of saving the affected eye and preventing blindness in it.
“Retinoblastoma is a rare cancer that strikes about 300 children in this country every year,” says Categories Care for children, Treatments and Procedures