Eye cancer, also known as eye melanoma, is a type of tumor that most often causes no apparent signs or symptoms, being more common in people ages 45 to 75 who have blue eyes.
Because signs and symptoms are often not verified, diagnosis is more difficult, there is an increased risk of metastasis, especially in the brain, lungs and liver, and treatment becomes more aggressive and the eye may need to be removed.
- Signs and symptoms of eye cancer are not common.
- But they occur more easily when the disease is already at a later stage.
- The main ones being:.
In addition, because this type of cancer has a high capacity for metastasis, other symptoms related to the spread and proliferation of cancer cells may also appear, with mainly pulmonary, cerebral or liver symptoms.
Diagnosis of eye melanoma occurs most often during routine exams, as symptoms are rare. Thus, in order to diagnose eye cancer, the ophthalmologist, in addition to assessing the signs and symptoms that the patient may present, performs more specific tests, such as retinography, angiography, retinal mapping and eye ultrasound.
If the diagnosis is confirmed, more tests are also requested to check for metastasis, and a CT scan, abdominal ultrasound, MRI and blood tests are recommended to evaluate liver function, such as TGO/AST, TGP/ALT and GGT, as the liver is the primary site of eye melanoma metastasis. Learn more about liver tests.
The main goal of treatment is to preserve eye tissue and vision, but the type of treatment depends on the size of the tumor and its location, in addition to whether or not it is metastasized.
For small or medium tumors, radiation therapy and laser therapy are usually indicated, but when the tumor is large, surgery may be needed to remove the tumor and surrounding tissues; In some cases, it may be necessary to remove the eye, this the procedure is called ennucleation, however it is quite aggressive and is therefore only indicated when previous treatments have had no effect or when the risk of metastasis is very high.