|
3
in family have survived retina cancer-(Yahoo News-08/08/2005)
Rachel Woosley didn't want to believe that her children could get cancer.
"It's a whole denial thing," the Billings woman said. "It had skipped
every other generation, and we thought maybe it will skip the girls."
Rachel Woosley's husband, Kirk, was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, or
cancer of the retina, as a toddler. Kirk Woosley suspects that his
grandmother's twin sister, who died at age 3 from an undefined eye injury,
also had the disease. "We didn't know for sure it was genetic," Kirk
Woosley said.
Just in case, the couple made sure their pediatrician knew about the
family history. Despite regular checkups for Kayla, now 11, and Shelby,
10, the doctor never found anything. It was Rachel who noticed an odd
reflection in Kayla's left eye when the girl was about 2. "Her left eye
was completely full of tumors," Rachel said. "We had just days to decide.
Once the eye fills up, it finds a way out, so it would have gone into her
brain and killed her."
The Woosleys had to decide almost on the spot whether to pursue
chemotherapy at Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Ore., where the family
lived, or to have Kayla's eye removed."It was a Monday or Tuesday, and
they were like, 'Friday is open for surgery,' " Kirk said. Fearing the
toddler wouldn't survive chemotherapy, the couple opted to have her eye
taken out. "It wasn't long after Kayla had her surgery that we took Shelby
in, and she, of course, had it, too," Rachel said. Shelby was less than a
year old and had a single tumor. Radiation therapy eliminated the
malignant growth, and today Shelby has perfect vision.
For the next year, the girls returned to the hospital every six weeks.
Each time, they were put under general anesthesia while doctors examined
their eyes. "Every checkup they had was a prep for surgery," Kirk said. To
date, both girls have remained cancer-free.
So has Kirk. The Billings native was 2 years old when doctors discovered a
tumor on the optic nerve of his left eye. He traveled to New York City for
treatment and returned for checkups every year until he was in high
school. He doesn't remember much of it. "I do remember going in when I was
junior high age, and they had doctors from other countries lined up. They
looked at my eye," Kirk said. "I felt like a guinea pig." Kirk did not
lose his eye, but he cannot see out of it. "I've never known anything
different," he said. "I teach wood shop at Skyview. That's a profession
where you have to be careful, and it's never crossed my mind that I needed
both eyes to do that."
Kayla uses a prosthetic eye. At the time of her surgery, doctors used
donated sclera, which is the white part of the eyeball, to attach a piece
of coral to the muscle at the back of Kayla's eye socket. Because of that,
she has some muscle control over the prosthesis. She was recently fitted
for a new prosthetic eye and got to watch as it was formed. "It was
weird," Kayla said. "When he put the molding in (the socket), it felt
scratchy, like there was salt in there. The new eye was bigger, so it felt
weird."
The Woosleys think Kayla and Shelby were born with retinoblastoma. About
40 percent of retinoblastoma cases are genetic, according to the American
Cancer Society. In 75 percent of cases, the disease produces tumors in one
eye. About 250 American children are diagnosed with retinoblastoma every
year. By contrast, 211,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with
invasive breast cancer in a year. The Woosleys said they feel lucky that
their daughters' tumors were found early enough for effective treatment
and that both girls had the cancer in only one eye. "It's probably been
hardest on Rachel," Kirk Woosley said. "For me, it wasn't any fun,
obviously, but I knew the drill and knew what was going to happen. She's
never been through this before."
"We had always talked about having four kids," Rachel said. "But once
these two came along …" Rachel said she and Kirk realized they weren't
willing to risk having more children with retinoblastoma.
[Top]
New
Insight Into Children's Eye Cancer-(HealthDayNews-16/06/2004)
Specific
cells in the eye that develop into retinoblastoma - the most common eye
cancer in young children - have been identified by Toronto Western Hospital
scientists. The discovery may help in the development of targeted treatment
for eye tumors. According to the American Cancer Society, about 250 US
children are affected by retinoblastomas each year. The research, published
in the June issue of the journal Cancer Cell, suggests that these particular
eye cells already have cancer-like properties. This explains why retinoblastoma
occurs in children while other types of cancers such as lung and colon
cancer occur in adults, the researchers said.
"From
the first cancerous cell to the malignant tumor, there are a chain of
events that must occur for a person to develop cancer, which must overcome
each one of the body's natural protective barriers that guard against
tumor growth," according to the study's lead author, Dr. Rod Bremner,
a senior scientist in the division of cell and molecular biology at Toronto
Western Research Institute. "For a number of years, it's been known that
retinoblastoma develops more quickly and with fewer numbers of events
than typical adult cancers but, until now, it wasn't clear why," Bremner
said in a prepared statement.
He
and his colleagues found that the genetic mutation associated with retinoblastoma
eliminates some of the body's protective barriers at the cellular level.
As a result, specific retinal cells become predisposed to developing into
tumors. Key to this development is the fact that these kinds of retinal
cells already have tumor-like properties, such as the ability to bypass
cell death. According to Bremner, this means they don't automatically
self-destruct when they begin dividing uncontrollably. Cancerous retinal
cells might therefore pass as 'normal,' evading the body's defenses.
[Top]
German
Scientists Link Mobile Phones To Eye Cancer-(Cancer Info-17/01/2001)
Researchers at Germany's
Essen University have concluded that mobile phone users may be up to 3.3
times as likely to develop cancer of the eye. A research team found that
the incidence of eye tumors in a normal population is around one in 100,000
every year. However, after interviewing 118 people with uveal melanoma
and comparing their mobile phone usage with a control group of 475 people
without the cancer, the researchers found a higher incidence of eye cancer
among the regular mobile phone users than those that did not use a cellular
phone.The researchers were at pains to stress that the findings should not be
treated as conclusive, adding that further scientific investigation will
be required to support or disprove the theory. Previous research
into uveal melanoma has suggested that cells within the uveal layer, a
layer of melanocyte cells behind the retinal layer of the eye, will grow
and divide rapidly when exposed to high frequency radiation, such as that
from a microwave.
[Top]
|
