For Carl, Seeing Is Believing He's Beaten Eye Cancer

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday March 9, 1993

By MARGOT DATE

Sue Gillmore lost her right eye 31 years ago to retinoblastoma, the most common form of childhood eye tumour.

Mrs Gillmore was four months old when her eye was removed. Her son, Carl, born in July 1990, was luckier after he was diagnosed with the same condition. He has kept both eyes and his sight, although he has to wear thick glasses after having cataracts removed, a sideeffect of radiotherapy.

Little Carl had a fighting chance when it came to treating the two tumours in his right eye and four in his left because of early diagnosis.

Retinoblastoma affects one in 17,000 children in Australia, or about eight in NSW every year, and a small percentage of those cases are inherited.

The director of the Save Sight Institute and Professor of Ophthalmology at Sydney University, Professor Frank Billson , said seven out of 10 cases of retinoblastoma affected only one eye, but about 80 per cent of those eyes had to be removed because diagnosis was made too late.

"The interesting thing about this tumour is that in our society, 95 per cent of our children (with the disease) survive, but in underdeveloped countries with poor health services 95 per cent of children die," Professor Billson said.

"There is still a very serious visual morbidity. In a sense you make a deliberate decision to gamble life for sight."

To try to find a way to save the sight of more sufferers, scientists at the Save Sight Institute are investigating why some some tumours regress to scar tissue spontaneously.

Scientist Dr Michele Madigan, and colleagues are looking for a link with apoptosis, a type of natural cell-death that occurs when tadpoles lose their tails and a foetus loses the webbing between its fingers.

"Apoptosis is very common in a whole variety of tumours," Dr Madigan said. "The hope is to stimulate the tumour so it would eat itself."

They will test a variety of chemicals to see which if any, in culture, can stimulate apoptosis.

Present treatments may involve removing the eye, radiation therapy from outside or inside the eye, freezing, laser therapy or chemotherapy.

Carl Gillmore, now 2 1/2, was diagnosed at 13 weeks and immediately had radiotherapy. The side-effects were retardation of bone growth around the eyes, which is barely noticeable, and cataracts.

He had the cataracts removed last year and will have intraocular lenses implanted when he is older.

Mrs Gillmore and her husband, John, of Lindfield, knew there was a one-in-two chance that their child would be born with the condition but decided it was a risk worth taking.

In 1991, the Gillmores were involved in the establishment of the Retinoblastoma Support Group of the Save Sight Institute, which now has 30 families as members.

Tonight , a new brochure about the disease will be launched to try to encourage wider knowledge among parents and doctors.

Parents can easily tell if their baby has a problem if the child's eye, when photographed with flash, shows up as white instead of red, known as a cat's eye reflex. A squint or poor sight may also be a sign of retinoblastoma.