Unilateral retinoblastoma; natural history and an age-based protocol in 248 patients

Management of Intraocular Retinoblastoma: ICMR Consensus Guidelines

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common childhood intraocular malignancy. Delayed presentation due to a lack of awareness and advanced intraocular tumors are a common scenario in low-middle income countries (LMICs). Remarkable treatment advances have been made in the past few decades allowing globe salvage in advanced intraocular RB (IORB) including systemic chemotherapy with focal consolidation and targeted treatments like intraarterial chemotherapy and intravitreal chemotherapy. However, a lack of availability and affordability limits the use of such advances in LMICs. External beam radiotherapy, despite risk of second cancers in RB with germline mutations, still remains useful for recalcitrant RB not responding to any other treatment. When choosing conservative treatment for advanced IORB, the cost and long duration of treatment, morbidity from multiple evaluation under anesthesias (EUAs), side effects of treatment and risk of treatment failure need to be taken into account and discussed with the parents. In this article, the authors discuss the ICMR consensus guidelines on the management of IORB.

Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification versus fluorescent in situ hybridization for screening RB1 copy number variations in Egyptian patients with retinoblastoma

BACKGROUND

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common primary intraocular malignant tumor in children. RB is mostly caused by biallelic mutations in RB1 and occurs in hereditary and non-hereditary forms according to the "two-hit" theory. RB1 mutations comprise point mutations, indels, large deletions, and duplications. Genetic testing is essential for the comprehensive treatment and management of patients with RB.

AIM

The aim was to evaluate RB1 copy number variations (CNVs) using MLPA versus FISH assays in group of Egyptian patients with RB.

RESULTS

16.67% showed an RB1 deletion, abnormal methylation status, or both.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggested MLPA is a fast, reliable, and powerful method and should be used as a first-line screening tool for detecting RB1 CNVs in patients with RB. Moreover, MLPA is advantageous as it evaluates the methylation status/inactivation of RB1, not possible by FISH.