Retinoblastoma: The Rare Cancer that Every Parent Should Know About

Parents love to take pictures of their beautiful children, but many pictures are plagued by the evil-looking red eye refection. What would you do if you got a white reflection instead? Most people would just shrug this off and not think much of it. You would never think that by doing this you could be endangering your child's life. A white reflection in the pupils instead of a red reflection could be a sign of a rare and deadly eye cancer called Retinoblastoma.

Retinoblastoma usually strikes before the child reaches five years old and can even occur in the womb. It is caused my immature retinal cells within the eyes, and these cells develop into very rapid growing tumors within the retina. If caught early, this cancer is very curable, however, it is estimated that 87% of the children who are stricken with this aggressive cancer die. Most of these children live in developing countries where there is little or very poor medical care. The children who survive Retinoblastoma will usually have some sort of visual impairment and my lose the affected eye or eyes. Usually there is only one eye involved, but in up to 40% of cases, both eyes are affected.

There are other symptoms besides the white-eye reflection associated with Retinoblastoma. The child may have white spots in the pupil that can be seen with the naked eye. The iris of the eyes might be different colors, or the child's eyes may be crossed and they might complain of pain or poor vision. In addition, the eye might appear red, irritated or crossed.

It should be noted that Retinoblastoma is very rare and accounts for less than 3% of all the childhood cancers that are reported. Just because your child has a white eye reflection in one picture does not mean that your child has cancer. In one of our Christmas pictures, my son had a white-eye reflex. Knowing about this horrible cancer, I panicked and took him to his pediatrician. The doctor explained to me that a white reflex could be caused by a child's eyes being slightly crossed or from a strange angle of the camera. In his seventeen years of practice in Nashville, TN, he had never had a case of Retinoblastoma. A quick look into my squirmy toddler's eyes confirmed that everything was just fine, but, as every parent knows, it is better to be safe than sorry.