Treatment Options for Retinoblastoma
Intraocular Retinoblastoma
Extraocular Retinoblastoma
Recurrent Retinoblastoma
A link to a list of current clinical trials is included for each treatment section. For some types or stages of cancer, there may not be any trials listed. Check with your doctor for clinical trials that are not listed here but may be right for you.
Intraocular Retinoblastoma
If the cancer is in one eye and the tumor is large, treatment is usually enucleation.
If the cancer is in one eye and it is expected that vision can be saved, treatment may include the following:
If the cancer is in both eyes, treatment may include the following:
- Enucleation of the eye with the most cancer, and radiation therapy to the other eye.
- Radiation therapy to both eyes or chemotherapy (chemoreduction) followed by local treatment. This may be done if there is a chance to save vision in both eyes.
- Surgery only, when vision cannot be saved.
- A clinical trial of subtenon chemotherapy combined with systemic chemotherapy and local treatment.
- A clinical trial of new combinations of chemotherapy and other treatments to the eye.
- A clinical trial of higher doses of systemic chemotherapy combined with regional chemotherapy and lower doses of radiation therapy to the eye.
- A clinical trial of gene therapy.
Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with intraocular retinoblastoma. For more specific results, refine the search by using other search features, such as the location of the trial, the type of treatment, or the name of the drug. General information about clinical trials is available from the NCI Web site.
Extraocular Retinoblastoma
There is no standard treatment for extraocular retinoblastoma. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy have been used. Treatment may be a clinical trial of high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell transplant.
Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with extraocular retinoblastoma. For more specific results, refine the search by using other search features, such as the location of the trial, the type of treatment, or the name of the drug. General information about clinical trials is available from the NCI Web site.
Recurrent Retinoblastoma
If the cancer is small and in the eye only, treatment is usually local therapy (enucleation, radiation therapy, cryotherapy, photocoagulation, or thermotherapy).
If the cancer comes back outside of the eye, treatment will depend on many things and may be within a clinical trial.
Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with recurrent retinoblastoma. For more specific results, refine the search by using other search features, such as the location of the trial, the type of treatment, or the name of the drug. General information about clinical trials is available from the NCI Web site.
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