The doctors at L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, have performed the first Brachytherapy method for treating cancerous tumours in the eyes of two children aged 11 and 3. The three-year-old child had tumours in both the eyes. The left eye was removed as the tumour was in a very advanced stage, while the right eye received radiation therapy.

The residual tumour was treated using Branchytherapy, probably for the first time in South Asia. The children suffering from what is called Retiniblastoma would lead a normal within a week.

According to Dr Satish G Honavar, ocular oncologist, and Vijay Anand Reddy, consultant oncologist of the Institute, so far removal of the eyeball was the only remedy in such cases. But now radiation therapy is being successfully used in treating cancer of the eye.

As against the general practice of using external radiation source, the LVPEI doctors followed Brachytherapy, "an effective new means of delivering radiation through a radioactive source close to the tumour. This therapy is more advantageous than external radiation therapy as it exposes surrounding tissues to negligible amounts of radiation." This saves the vision and the eye, which is not possible in external radiation therapy.

In India one in 10,000 people has eye cancer and the incidence of this form among children in the 0-5 age group is very high in Andhra Pradesh.

A team of BARC specialists had inspected LVPEI and permitted import of a plaque, Ruthenium-106 (a beta emitter with a half-life of 368 days) from Germany.

The doctors said the intraocular tumour was first assessed for its location, height and diameter by clinical examination and imaging. The radiation dose and exposure time were calculated by automated dosimetry software to select an appropriate plaque.

In plaque therapy the exact location of the tumour is marked on the sclera, the tough outermost coat of the eyeball, and the radioactive plaque is sutured to it. The conjunctive, a membrane lining the white portion of the eyeball, and the inner eyelid, is sutured back. The patient stays in the hospital for about five days under strict radiation safety precautions after which the plaque is removed.

The surgery is performed under general anaesthesia in children and local anesthesia in adults. A conjunctival peritomy ( a small incision) is performed before the radiation therapy.