Pioneering eye treatment technique unveiled at AIIMS

A young boy suffering from retinal cancer in both eyes, who had already lost one eye due to advanced tumour, successfully underwent treatment at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here via eye plaque brachytherapy facility.

The R P Centre has attained the distinction of being the first centre in North India to have brachytherapy facility for treating eye tumours.

Prof Atul Kumar, chief of the Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, described it as a "red letter day in the history" of the Centre. Eye cancer patients who are most likely to benefit from this method of treatment will be children suffering from retinoblastoma, and adults suffering melanoma. Both cancers are life-threatening, and plaque brachytherapy can help save not only the life of the patient, but also restore their eyesight.

With Prof Kumar at the helm, the team of experts at AIIMS including Prof Bhavna Chawla (ophthalmologist), Prof Sushmita Pathy (radiation oncologist) and Prof Subramani (medical physicist) successfully treated the young cancer patient. Prof Arun D Singh, Director, Ophthalmic Oncology, Cleveland Eye Clinic, USA, also played a key role in supporting the initiative.

Dr Bhavna Chawla informed that the young boy suffering from retinoblastoma had already lost one eye due to his tumour having reached an advanced stage. "For us, April 18 is a red letter day when the first surgery using plaque brachytherapy was successfully performed at centre. The first patient was a boy who had retinoblastoma in both eyes and had already lost an eye," said Prof. Chawla. She further said that the treatment is likely to benefit thousands of patients suffering from eye cancer who are referred to AIIMS from all over the country.

Plaque brachytherapy is a form of local radiation delivered to the eye via a radioactive device that is stitched onto the eye. The treatment has proven to be an effective eye- and vision-sparing alternative to enucleation in patients of intraocular tumors.

Brachytherapy has been used to treat intraocular tumors in various parts of the world since 1930.