A six-month-old boy was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer after his mother noticed something strange while watching her son on the baby monitor.
While Benny’s mother was watching him in his crib one evening, she noticed that one of her son’s eyes looked completely black and the other looked like a shining light on the screen.
She initially thought the different colored eyes were due to an error on the baby monitor, but when his grandmother also said his eye looked cloudy in certain light, Benny’s mother took him to a pediatrician.
After an MRI, doctors diagnosed the six-month-old child with retinoblastoma, a very rare cancer of the retina that usually starts in the back of the eye, usually in children.
Benny’s cancer had developed in the eye that looked like a black puddle on the monitor.
Benny was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer at six months old after this image appeared on his baby monitor. One of his eyes had turned black
Now 18 months old, he is cancer-free thanks to a treatment that involved a tube run down his leg to the back of his eye to deliver chemotherapy directly to the tumor.
Dr. Matthew Dietz, a pediatric oncologist at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, said parents should pay attention to similar symptoms in their children: “Parents should take note of photos, videos and other images of their children where one eye is glowing and the other is not.” ‘T.’
Doctors at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Murray, Utah were able to cure the cancer and save some of the vision in Benny’s left eye, but his mother – who asked not to be named – said he still had vision problems.
She talked about her son’s recovery CUTV: ‘The cancer was discovered early.
‘But when I look back now and know what I’m looking for, I can see the “glow” (in Benny’s eyes) when I was three months old.
“I’d never heard of retinoblastoma before, and if this story somehow comes up when the next concerned parent ‘Googles’ their child, then it would be worth something to someone else if I missed it for three months .’
Instead of delivering toxic chemotherapy to Benny’s entire body, doctors treated him by inserting a microcatheter, a tube as thin as a wire, into an artery in his leg and guiding it through his body to the tumor in his eye to directly administer chemotherapy. in the crowd.
Benny received treatments through his catheter once every few weeks for months.
And even though Benny’s mother said her son would be sick for several days after chemotherapy, he was always smiling and interacting with his doctors and nurses.
Doctors also wanted to investigate the origins of Benny’s cancer and geneticists discovered that he was missing the retinoblastoma 1 gene, which is not normally seen in children with this cancer.
More extensive genetic sequencing revealed that the six-month-old baby was missing part of chromosome 13, which is rare and can lead to other medical problems.
Benny is now 18 months old and has been declared cancer-free, but has to return to the hospital every month for check-ups.
Although doctors were able to save most of his vision in his left eye, he did lose some vision and now attends Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind to help him adjust to the change.
His mother also said he is dealing with developmental delays.
Benny is currently learning the transition to sitting, she said, and is “very anxious about transitioning from a position where he feels very stable.”
Retinoblastoma is rare, but it is the most common eye cancer in children, with about 300 cases diagnosed each year.
It is most common in babies aged two to three years and the five-year survival rate is 96 percent.
Additionallyit is most common in children because it is caused by a genetic mutation in a gene related to eye development.
Benny is pictured above in hospital after treatment. His mother said that after receiving the medication he was very sick for a few days
Symptoms include having a white pupil, a cloudy eye, misaligned eyes looking toward the ears or nose, different colored irises, and a red and inflamed eyeball.
Parents of children who develop cancer may suspect a health problem because only one of their child’s eyes looks red or different in photos.
But doctors fear that with the advent of phone cameras – which can easily filter out this red-eye – many cases will now be missed.
Dr. Eric Hansen, an oncologist at the University of Utah Eye Center, said KSL.com: ‘In Benny’s case we were really lucky… because (a baby monitor) has no built-in software to remove that red reflex.’
He added: ‘If you notice any concerns about the eye, discuss it with your pediatrician – don’t ignore it.’
Babies are screened for this cancer at birth and in the U.S. usually between six and 12 months of age, doctors say.