Causes ,effects symptoms and treatments of eye cancer

Author:

Shalini roy

Eye cancer: Eye cancer occurs when the cells in the eye grow unusually without any controlling limit. These uncontrolled cancer cells grows rapidly and forms a tumor. These tumors can occur in any parts of the eye. Generally tumors are of two types.

•Benign tumor: This tumor is not cancerous. They can be treated easily. They don\'t spread to other parts of the body.

•Malignant tumor: This tumor is cancerous, they causes damage to the adjacent organs by spreading the cancer cells at high rate. The cells in this tumor invade the distant organs and forms new tumors through blood flow or by lymphatic system. The new tumor has the same characteristic features of the primary tumor. For example, if the eye cancer spreads to the mouth, the cancer cells in the mouth are actually belonging to the eye cancer cells. Then this disease is called as metastatic eye cancer.

Eye cancer is a combination of several diseases with different types of causes, symptoms and treatments. Basically cells are the basic unit of life they grow and divide into more cells when the body requires them. These cells forms the tissues and then organs, they are the building blocks of the body system. If there is an abnormal growth and division of cells without any controlling limit, then it results in forming tumor (excess tissue) in the body. Intraocular cancer is the name for the cancer in the eye ball.

Types of Eye cancer (Intraocular cancer):

•Eyelid carcinoma: This disease is not so dangerous. It can be removed easily by surgery treatment. This cancer is caused by skin cancer.

•Hemangioma: It is a being tumor, easily treated by surgery process. This cancer attacks retina and choroid

•Conjunctival melanoma: This tumor spreads to the lymph nodes if it is not treated at an early stage. This tumor occurs in the conjunctiva membrane of the eye.

•Retinoblastoma: This cancer is very rare and occurs only in childhood. This tumor can be removed easily by chemotherapy process.

•Intraocular lymphoma: this cancer occurs in the eye ball .This disease is not easy to diagnose because it a variation of nervous system lymphoma.

•Melanoma: This type of cancer occurs mainly in adults. This cancer occurs due to excess growth of melanocytes cells. This cancer is also called as uveal melanoma.

Causes of eye cancer: The exact causes for this cancer are not found but the risk factors for this eye cancer are identified. Here is the list of risk factors.

Risk factors for eye cancer:

Age: Generally aged people will be suffering from this intraocular melanoma cancer. if the age is above 35

years, there will be more chances of getting this cancer due to the increase in risk factors.

Gender: Many of the research programs say that men and women are equally affected by intraocular melanoma.

Race: Intraocular melanoma is mostly found in white people than any other race.

Family pedigree: Family hereditary may cause intraocular melanoma.

Previous cancer history: If the person faces any other cancer disease will have more chances of having intraocular melanoma.

Symptoms and signs for eye cancer: In the early stage of intraocular melanoma, we can\'t find any symptoms. Later in the advancement of this disease causes some problems like:
• Loosing some part of vision
• Trouble in seeing
• Seeing flashes of light
• Seeing flashy lines or floating objects.
• Facing dark spot in the iris region

Some people may find these symptoms and some people may not find any symptoms during the starting stage. The most common symptom of intraocular melanoma is painless loss of vision. So, if you find any of the symptoms in the list, consult your doctor for diagnoses of this problem.

Treatment methods for eye cancer: Treatment for this disease depends upon several factors like tumor size, shape, age of the patient, patient health condition and cancer type.
Active surveillance, surgery, radiotherapy and laser therapy are the major types of treatments available for curing brain cancer.

Active surveillance: This process can be taken when the cancer grows slowly without causing any problems for several years. Doctor keeps on monitoring the cancer growth in the eye, if the cancer starts to effect the other parts, then the treatment process is started at that very time for curing it.

Surgery: Surgery is carried to remove the cancer tumor. Surgery can be carried in the early stages of the tumor occurrence. Surgery will be taken place only if the tumor is located only in one part of the body. During the surgery process the damaged lymph nodes are also removed along with the tumor. This surgery process depends on the location, area and size of the tumor. There are four types of surgery treatments for curing intraocular melanoma. They are:

• Enucleation: This process is for removing the eye.
• Iridectomy: This process is for removing a certain part of iris
• Endoresection: This process is for the removal of choroidal tumor in the eye.
• Iridocyclectomy: This process is for removal of iris and ciliary.
In some cases surgery alone cannot cure this intraocular disease. So, depending upon the severity of this eye disease, radiation therapy and laser therapy were given.

Radiation therapy: Radiotherapy: Radiotherapy is a process of removing cancer cells by using high intensity x-rays. These high energy x-rays are aimed at the cancer affected part of the body to destroy the cancer cells. The most common type of radiation therapy used is external radiation therapy.

•External radiation therapy: Radiations are given from the external side of the body. The radiations are aimed at the effected area from outside the body.

•Internal radiations: Radiations are passed into the body by making some small incisions in the eye area. This treatment gives better results than the external radiation therapy.

Laser therapy: In this process laser beams are used to kill cancer cells in the eye .The tumor in the eye is removed by using the heat in the form of laser. This treatment is also called as thermotherapy .This process contains fewer side effects than radiation therapy. This treatment can be given after having surgery and radiation therapy.

Eye cancer is also called as intraocular melanoma cancer. It occurs generally in aged people due to increase in risk factors. In the early stage of this cancer we can\'t find any symptoms. Surgery, radiation therapy and laser therapy are the treatment process available for this cancer. This cancer contains metastatic characteristics because it spreads to other parts of the body.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/causes-effects-symptoms-and-treatments-of-eye-cancer-1065497.html

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