Head and neck tumors

If you have been diagnosed with eye cancer, your doctor will discuss the best options for treatment. This depends on several factors, including:

Types of cancer

The location and size of the cancer

If the cancer has spread (metastasized)

Your age and health

One or more of the following therapies may be recommended to treat the cancer or help relieve symptoms.

Surgical operation

The following procedures can be used to treat uveal melanoma.

Eye surgery: Surgery to preserve the eye can be done in some cases. Our professional ophthalmologists use the latest surgical techniques to remove cancer while making every effort to preserve the function and beauty of your eyes, eyelids and facial area.

Iridectomy: Removal of the iris (colored part of the eye).

Enucleation: Enucleation is the removal of the entire eyeball. It is performed in some patients with advanced uveal melanoma.

Orbital extraction: This surgery involves the removal of the eyes, eyelids, surrounding skin, orbital muscle, fat, and nerves. Although this procedure is rarely performed, it is an option for patients with very advanced uveal melanoma.

Eye plastic surgery: After the enucleation or enucleation, a specialized team will attach the prosthetic eye to the patient. Each prosthetic is tailored to the patient, and patients often think it looks great.

Laser therapy

Laser therapy uses intense focused beams of light to destroy cancerous tissue in the eye. This is sometimes used to treat tumors within the eyeball, including uveal melanoma and metastatic tumors.

radiotherapy

Radiation therapy uses powerful, focused beams of energy to kill cancer cells. There are several different radiation therapy techniques. Doctors can use these to pinpoint tumors while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

The following types of radiation therapy are available to patients:

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) : A type of radiation therapy that focuses multiple beams of radiation of varying intensity directly on the tumor to obtain the maximum dose.

Volumetric arc therapy: A form of intensity modulated radiation therapy that uses a rotating therapy machine to deliver radiation from multiple angles.

Proton therapy: Proton therapy is similar to traditional radiation therapy, but it uses a different type of energy and allows doctors to target tumors more accurately. This limits damage to nearby healthy tissue and allows for stronger doses of radiation.

Brachytherapy: Brachytherapy involves placing small pieces of radioactive material on the patient's body or within the body as close to the tumor as possible. This allows doctors to deliver very high doses of radiation directly into a patient's tumor while limiting radiation exposure to healthy tissue.

Stereotactic radiosurgery: Stereotactic radiosurgery is a non-invasive treatment that uses dozens of tiny beams of radiation to precisely target tumors with a single, high dose of radiation. Despite its name, SRS is not a surgical procedure. It doesn't require an incision or anesthesia. For patients with uveal melanoma, it is used in very limited circumstances.

cryoablation

Cryoablation, also known as cryotherapy or cryosurgery, uses cold to kill tumor cells. During the procedure, a special probe is inserted into the tumor and then cooled to temperatures well below freezing. A ball of ice forms at the tip of the probe, freezing and destroying cancer tissue. Cryotherapy is not as invasive as surgery and can sometimes be performed as an outpatient procedure.

chemotherapy

Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells, control their growth or relieve symptoms associated with the disease. Chemotherapy may involve a single drug or a combination of two or more drugs, depending on the type of cancer and how fast it is growing.

There are several ways to deliver chemotherapy for eye cancer, including:

Intravenous injection: The drug is injected into a blood vessel and pumped throughout the body.

Intravasally, a catheter is inserted into a blood vessel near the groin and then travels through the body to the eye, where chemotherapy is administered directly. This avoids exposing patients to systemic chemotherapy. In some cases, this is the preferred technique for chemotherapy drug delivery.

Intravitreal: Chemotherapy is injected directly into the eye.

Periocular: The medication is placed around the eye.

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapeutic drugs aim to stop or slow the growth or spread of cancer. This happens at the cellular level. Cancer cells need specific molecules (usually in the form of proteins) to survive, reproduce, and spread. These molecules are usually made by genes that cause cancer, as well as by the cells themselves. Targeted therapies are designed to interfere with or target these molecules or the oncogenes that produce them.

Targeted therapies can be used to treat cancers of the eye that have spread or metastasized to other parts of the body.

immunotherapy

The immune system detects and protects the body from infection and disease. Cancer is a complex disease that evades and outsmarts the immune system. Immunotherapy improves the immune system's ability to eliminate cancer.

Immunotherapy can be used to treat eye cancers that have spread or metastasized to other parts of the body.

The following types of immunotherapy can be used to treat eye cancer:

Immune checkpoint inhibitors: Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a type of immunotherapy. They prevent the immune system from shutting down until the cancer is completely eliminated.

Monoclonal antibodies: Monoclonal antibodies are a type of immunotherapy. These antibodies attach to specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells or immune cells. They either mark the cancer as a target for the immune system or boost the ability of immune cells to fight the cancer.