Clinical Characteristics of the Retinoblastoma Diagnosed before One Year Old

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the clinical characteristics of retinoblastoma diagnosed before one year old. 19 children with retinoblastoma were observed with clinical records, retrospectively. Thirteen patients had unilateral retinoblastoma. and 6 patients had bilateral retinoblastoma. The mean age at diagnosis was 6.5 months. Patients of bilateral retinoblastoma were younger than those of unilateral retinoblastoma. Sixteen patients had leukocoria. No patients had a known family history. Under Reese-Ellsworth retinoblastoma classification system, 13 eyes(52%) were initially seen with group 4,5 tumors, 16 eyes(64%) were treated with group 4,5 tumors. Eight eyes(32%) had extraocular local metastasis. No eye had distant metastasis. Seventeen eyes(68%) were treated with enucleation or orbital exentration. Four eyes required additional treatment because of 2 eyes for recurrence and 2 eyes for new tumor. For a mean of 31.6 months, 2 children died, but there was no evidence of distant metastasis. These results show the retinoblastoma diagnosed before one year old tend to have bilateral tumor and to be more advanced, therefore the vigorous efforts for diagnosis and treatment should be done.