Treatment for Tumours Inside The Eye
Treatment
Prior to any making any decisions about the treatment options to treat your cancer, your case will be discussed at a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting. All the clinical team members will attend, taking into account your thoughts and preferences. Your specialist nurse will discuss the recommendations of the MDT with you and arrange your admission for treatment.
Treatments for Uveal Melanoma. Tumours on the surface of the eye
The aims of treatment of tumours inside the eye (uveal melanomas) are as follows:
-
Destroy the tumour
-
Retain as much vision as possible
-
Prevent metastasis and recurrence
Whether all these aims can be achieved will depend on the size and location of the tumour and how the various treatments achieve these aims will be discussed in the clinic.
At the Sheffield Ocular Oncology Service, we offer the following treatments:
-
-
Photodynamic therapy (PDT)
-
-
-
Ruthenium plaque therapy
-
Stereotactic radiosurgery
-
Proton beam therapy
-
-
-
Removal of eye (Enucleation)
-
Local resection
-
The mainstay of treatment of conjunctival tumours is surgical removal (excision) with additional freezing (cryotherapy) of the surrounding tissue.
A number of patients will also require additional treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy eyedrops such as mitomycin or 5FU which have been shown to reduce the risk of recurrence. Such eye drops may also be used for patients with atypical cells either squamous or PAM as they have been shown to reduce the degree of atypia and hopefully therefore reduce the chance of progression to an invasive tumour.
Occasionally, patients require treatment with plaque radiotherapy or proton beam therapy particularly if the disease is extensive or resistant to conventional treatment.