Is there something different about your adopted child’s eyes, especially in photographs? I was reading about the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s child of the month recently. Her name is Jaylynn and her mother noticed that Jaylynn’s eyes looked different in photographs. The nine-month-old’s eyes took on a yellowish reflection in her photos. Sometimes her eyes would cross. Her mother took her to the doctor, who referred her to specialist who discovered the tumors, and referred her to the Mayo clinic. Jaylynn was diagnosed with advanced cancer in both of her eyes, called retinoblastoma.

The infant began 10 rounds of chemotherapy. Like most people who have chemotherapy, Jaylynn is bald. She and her family return to St Jude’s every 40 days for checkups. She is now two years old and her mother said that even though Jaylynn is legally blind, nothing slows her down.

Retinoblastoma is rarely diagnosed at birth although many patients are born with it. About 40 percent of those diagnosed were born with a genetic defect that lead to the development of tumors in one or both eyes. Children are usually diagnosed before the age of three years. The first sign of a tumor in the eye is a white reflex in the eye, resembling a cat’s eye. This is the white-yellow mass of the tumor being seen through the pupil, often noticed first in photographs. Other children are diagnosed because their eyes begin to turn in or out, or complaint of poor vision.

The retina is a thin membrane on the back of the eye and Retinoblastoma is a malignant tumor of the retina. The tumors are made up of small round cells grouped into rosette structures. Very large tumors often have small portions that break away from the main tumor and remain in suspension in the viscous fluid within the eye.

These small tumors are very difficult to treat. Retinoblastoma has the potential to spread throughout the retina, into the eye tissue under the retina, into the eye socket, the optic nerve and brain, or more distantly, to the bones and the bone marrow.

Usually less than 300 children a year in the United States will develop retinoblastoma and it accounts for around three percent of all childhood malignancies. The hereditary form is usually seen in children born with bilateral retinoblastoma. Over 50 percent of the cases are the non-hereditary form. More than 95 percent of patients can be cured if a tumor is contained within a single eye. Nearly 80 percent of the children with tumors in both eyes can be saved, although many of them need radiation therapy.