After over 10 years of clinical research, local medical experts have developed a new treatment policy for the most prevalent eye cancer for infants and children and cut their chemotherapy cycles by half.
The new policy, which ensures treatment results with fewer cycles, is expected to lead to major reform of global guidelines for retinoblastoma and provide patients with more optimized treatment.
Retinoblastoma is the commonest eye cancer for young children, seriously impacting their vision. There are about 8,000 new patients in the world each year, with 1,000 in China.
It mainly affects children before the age of 5. It most often affects one eye but both eyes can be affected in around 25 percent of patients. Some patients have a family history of the disease.
Ti Gong
The innovative therapy was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
For patients with a high risk of relapse and metastasis, the treatment is eyeball removal and chemotherapy.
The traditional practice is six chemotherapy cycles to reduce the risk of metastasis and improve survival, however its negative complications and financial burden for families can’t be ignored.
Medical professionals from Fudan University’s Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital have been conducting research on how to ensure chemotherapy effects while reducing the complications.
During this research, they enrolled 187 high-risk patients with retinoblastoma in one eye and gave different cycles of different chemotherapy plans. The patients’ average age was 25 months old.
Over the 79-month period, the five-year survival rate for patients with three chemotherapy cycles was 90.4 percent and 89.2 percent for patients with six cycles. There was no big difference. However, patients with longer treatment reported more negative events such as liver and kidney damage. The financial cost was also much higher.
Patients with three cycles reported a smaller reduction of life quality and had a quicker and better recovery after chemotherapy.
“There are 2,000 to 3,000 retinoblastoma children with high risk in the world each year. If the research result is promoted worldwide, these children can get benefit and their treatment outcome and life quality can be improved,” said the hospital’s Dr Qian Jiang, a leading researcher.
The research was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr Carol Shields, a renowned eye cancer expert, said this 3-cycle chemotherapy plan was of milestone significance, reducing the financial pressure on children’s families while fulfilling the treatment. It could save more children’s lives, she said.
,https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2410246128/