Hyderabad: A white reflex seen in the eye while clicking a photograph might mean that it is a case of retinoblastoma, cancer in the eye.
However, most healthcare workers, RMPs and also district-level health workers are not able to identify the disease. It occurs in children in the 0-5 years age group, say ophthalmologists on the occasion of World Retinoblastoma Awareness Week, observed from May 11 to 18.
If a child has crossed or squint eyes, constant swelling in the eye, continuous watering and also rapid loss of vision, than parents must get the eyes checked with an ophthalmologist.
Where there is no access to an ophthalmologist, people are dependent on healthcare workers and some of them have no idea that cancer can also occur in the eyes.
Dr Swathi Kaliki, consultant ocular oncologist at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, said, “We find so many patients coming in at the last stage when the cancer from the eye has spread to the brain. Or it has grown too large in the eye. If detected early it can be cured. But we find patients complaining that they went to health professional but were given drops and medicines and told that it would be fine.”
For this reason a conglomerate of health workers from the state are being educated about the shiny white reflex in the eye which is the most distinct and easy way to identify it. The healthcare workers are being told about the easiest method, of photographing, where the white reflex shows easily.
Ophthalmologist Dr Manoj Chandra Mathur said, “If a parent is complaining that the child is frequently bumping into objects and getting hurt this means the vision is blurred in a part of the eye.”
Early identification, when the white reflex is small, helps to cure the cancer faster and also does not allow it to spread. K. Pavan, a healthcare worker who has seen only two cases so far in his district, Kurnool, explained, “Parents come with complaints that the child has watery eyes. Hence, drops given. No one thinks of checking for a white shiny object in the eye. Later, the parents come when the eye swells up completely and is even starts bleeding at times.”
This is at the later stage, state oncologists, as the cancer then spreads from the retina to the brain and also to other parts of the body.
