It all started in May 2016, in Oregon (United States). 38-year-old mom Elly Smith takes a photo of her 2-year-old daughter, Gracie. And she notices that something is wrong: the flash made her child’s right eye “shine”. “It looked like she had a lazy eye and it made a strange white light” she tells SWNS.
Worried, Elly Smith goes to her doctor the next day with little Gracie, and quickly obtains an appointment with an ophthalmologist. The specialist diagnoses retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor of the retina which is characterized in particular by strabismus and by a “white reflection” in the eye – in medical parlance, this is called leukocoria.
According to Institut Curie, retinoblastoma generally occurs before the age of 5; in half of the cases, a genetic predisposition is present. While the pathology remains fairly rare in France (around 50 cases are recorded each year), around 95% of children are cured in developed countries.
10 tumors in the little girl’s eye
Just 16 days after the revealing photo (June 1, 2016), little Gracie underwent enucleation – surgery to remove her right eye.
Indeed, the doctors of Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia (in the United States) discovered the presence of 10 tumors in the retina. Two weeks later, the little girl was able to start chemotherapy treatment.
But all’s well that ends well: three months after her operation, the little girl received an ocular prosthesis – “she often talks about her” magic eye “with her friends” underlines the mother, now relieved.
Read also :
Technology: needle lenses to fight eye diseases
Conjunctivitis: the recipe for chamomile compresses
Retinal detachment: a way to improve vision
