Retinoblastoma
General Intro/About Us:
Retinoblastoma is the most common type of eye cancer in children. The Retinoblastoma Program at Primary Children’s Hospital is a collaborative team of experts from Primary Children’s Hospital, Moran Eye Center, Huntsman Cancer Institute that offers a personalized approach to your child’s care. We offer cutting edge diagnostics, treatments, and therapies to provide the best available for our patients with retinoblastoma.
You’ll receive comprehensive, multidisciplinary, care from dedicated pediatric oncologists, ophthalmologists, interventional radiologists, surgeons, genetic counselors and radiation oncologist. Our highly skilled team of pediatric anesthesiologists provide safe and personalized anesthesia care throughout your child's treatment. We support you and your child throughout their treatment, with care coordinators, nurses, child life specialists, social workers, teachers and psychology and nutrition services.
What Sets Us Apart
- We are the only Comprehensive Retinoblastoma Program in the Mountain West and offer all available therapies for retinoblastoma.
- Our teams of board-certified and fellowship-trained doctors have expertise in diagnosing and treating both common and rare, complex ocular tumors and meet frequently to optimize a patient’s individual care.
- We deliver patient centered care and offer state-of-the-art diagnostic tools and treatments.
- We are committed to advancing the care of retinoblastoma through innovative research and access to clinical trials to learn more about tumor biology and new treatments.
- Link to ARET2121 clinical trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05504291
- Link to CHLA study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04959097
- Link to APEC14b1/MCI https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02402244
Programs & Clinics/Services
- Blood, Cancer, Transplant program at PCH
- Moran Eye Center
- PCH Interventional Radiology
- Family Cancer Assessment Clinic
Conditions & Treatments
- We serve infants and children with retinoblastoma, children/families at genetic risk for developing retinoblastoma, and patients with a history of retinoblastoma.
- We offer state-of-the-art treatments:
- Intra-arterial chemotherapy (or ophthalmic artery chemosurgery): a treatment that allows us to deliver cancer-fighting medications directly to tumor. Our expert interventional radiologist inserts a long, thin tube called a catheter into a large artery, near the hip. The doctor slowly advances the catheter through your child’s arteries until it reaches a point just behind the retina of the affected eye. Through the catheter the doctor releases the chemotherapy treatment into the artery in the eye to directly attack the cancer cells.
- Intraocular chemotherapy (intravitreal chemotherapy): a treatment that allows us to directly deliver cancer-fighting medications into hard-to-treat portions of the eye.
- Pediatric Radiation Oncology, including brachytherapy: a treatment were our radiation oncologist and ocular oncologist create a custom radiation plaque that is inserted near the tumor to deliver highly localized dose of cancer killing radiation.
- Personalized systemic chemotherapy treatment
- Laser therapy
- Cryotherapy
- Targeted radiation, including pediatric brachytherapy
- Full spectrum of ophthalmologic surgeries, including enucleation
- Custom eye prosthesis options
- We utilize advanced diagnostic tools, including:
- Certified genetic counselors, with a full array of genetic testing
- PET/CT, MRI and CT scans
- Hand-held optical coherence tomography (OCT)
- High-resolution ultrasonography
- Portable electroretinography (ERG)
Locations
- Primary Children’s Hospital
- Moran Eye Center
Care Team
(would be ideal to have these hyperlink to parent institution profiles)
- Dr. Eric Hansen, Ocular Oncology, Co-Director
- Dr. Matthew Dietz, Pediatric Oncology, Co-Director
- Dr. Peter Feola, Interventional Radiology
- Dr. Matthew Poppe, Radiation Oncology
- Dr. Casey Merhoff, Pediatric Oncology
- Dr. Caroline Craven, Ocular Oncology
- Rosann Miller, Care Coordinator
- Tiffany Mckenna, Care Coordinator
- Jennie Vagher, Genetic Counselor
Patient/Family Resources
- https://healthcare.utah.edu/moran/ophthalmology/eye-cancer/retinoblastoma
- https://www.cancer.gov/types/retinoblastoma/
- Research/News/Innovations:
- Baby Monitor Helps Mom Find Tumor in Infant’s Eye - Inside Edition | YouTube
- Cancer on the baby monitor: Parents who spotted strange mark on their son's eye are told they were result of rare TUMOR - Daily Mail Online | KSL.com