A 47-year-old woman believes that her eyelid is itchy due to skin cancer, which appeared as a lesion growing on her eye.
- The woman went to the doctors and said that her eyes had been itching for the last two weeks.
- Upon examination, they discovered a malignant tumor growing above her eye.
- Her condition is rare, affecting only one in five million adults.
- She chose not to have surgery and instead received antibody treatment for cancer.
A 47-year-old woman went to an eye clinic because her eyes were itchy but found out she had cancer.
A Chinese case study from Xi’an No. 3 Hospital in Xi’an, China, about 450 miles from Wuhan, was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The woman said the problem started two weeks before she sought medical attention.
ATTENTION: graphic photo below
When the 47-year-old woman went to the doctor, they found something protruding from under her eyelids, giving doctors the first hint that something was wrong right above her right eye.
After the eversion of the eyelid, doctors discovered she had a malignant tumor on her eye.
The woman’s initial eye exam in August found something sticking out from under the eyelid of her right eye, giving doctors the first hint that something was wrong.
Doctors performed eyelid ectropion, a process in which they lift the eyelid and force the patient to look down to make the top of the eye visible.
On examination, a pigmented formation was found above her eye – a mixture of black and pink. The lesion grew on the palpebral conjunctiva, the transparent membrane on the inside of the eyelid that connects the eye to the surrounding tissue.
Doctors performed a biopsy to remove part of the lesion. The analysis showed that she was malignant, and the woman was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, a serious type of skin cancer.
But researchers note that this type of melanoma, marked by pigmented lesions, is a rare form of eye cancer. A few months later, the woman’s lesion has not expanded, which is an encouraging sign that the treatment is working.
Melanoma of the eye is extremely rare, occurring in only one in every five million adults. The condition is also not particularly fatal (photo from the archive)
She was offered surgery to remove and treat the lesion, but she refused. Instead, she chose treatment with pembrolizumab, a popular antibody-based drug used to treat melanoma, among other cancers.
With regular follow-up, doctors report that the lesion has not expanded or spread, the researchers write.
Cases of melanoma of the eye, like the one that a woman suffered, are extremely rare, occurring in only one in every five million adults.
Her case is even rarer because it did not start growing from the choroid, where most cases of ocular melanoma originate.
Sometimes there are no symptoms of cancer until it becomes very severe, but early signs include blurred vision, flies, or flashes in the eyes.
The condition is very tenacious; about 80 percent of patients live at least five years after diagnosis.