Eye cancer
Overview
Around 850 cases of eye cancer (ocular cancer) are diagnosed in the UK each year.
Symptoms
Eye cancer does not always cause obvious symptoms and may only be picked up during a routine eye test. Symptoms of eye cancer can include: shadows, flashes of light, or wiggly lines in your visionblurred visiona dark patch in your eye that's getting biggerpartial or totalloss of visionbulging of 1 eyea lump on your eyelid or in your eye that's increasing in sizeeye irritation that is not going awaypain in or around your eye, although this is rare These symptoms can also be caused by more minor eye conditions, so they're not necessarily a sign of cancer. But it's important to get the symptoms checked by a doctor as soon as possible.
Causes
Eye melanoma occurs when the pigment-producing cells in the eyes divide and multiply too rapidly. This produces a lump of tissue known as a tumour. It's not clear exactly why this occurs, but the following factors may increase the risk of it happening: lighter eye colour – if you have blue, grey or green eyes, you have a higher risk of developing eye melanoma compared with people who have brown eyeswhite or pale skin – eye melanoma mostly affects white people and is more common in those with fair skinunusual moles – if you have irregularly shaped or unusually colouredmoles, you're more at risk of developingmelanoma skin cancerand eye melanomause of sunbeds – there's some evidence to suggest that exposing yourself to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunbeds, for example, can increase your risk of eye melanomaoverexposure to sunlight – this increases your risk of skin cancer, and may also be a risk factor for eye melanoma The risk of developing eye melanoma also increases with age, with most cases being diagnosed in people in their 50s. There isinformation about risk factors for other types of eye cancer on the Cancer Research UK website.
Treatment
Treatment for melanoma of the eye depends on the size and location of the tumour. Your care team will explain each treatment option in detail, including the benefits and any potential complications. Treatment will aim to conserve the affected eye whenever possible. The main treatments for eye melanoma are: brachytherapy – tiny plates lined with radioactive material called plaques are inserted near the tumour and left in place for up to a week to kill the cancerous cellsexternalradiotherapy– a machine is used to carefully aim beams of radiation at the tumour to kill the cancerous cellssurgery to remove the tumour or part of the eye – this may be possible if the tumour is small and you still have some vision in your eyeremoval of the eye (enucleation) – this may be necessary if the tumour is large or you have lost your vision; the eye will eventually be replaced with an artificial eye that matches your other eyeimmunotherapy – medicine to help your immune system kill cancer, which you may have if you have a certain type of eye melanoma, or if the cancer has spread to other parts of your body Chemotherapyis rarely used for eye melanoma, but may be suitable for other types of eye cancer.