if you don't know already you need to pay attention to your children's eyes
in pictures specifically if they have a white or light reflection in one of their
eyes compared to the other this may be a sign of a rare type of eye cancer found in children
in this video we're talking about a retinoblastoma let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is dr neal guymon, dr eyeguy, with a show that keeps your eyes
healthy and your vision clear and i do videos all about the eyes to help you with your eyes so make
sure you're subscribed for my future videos now let's talk about eye cancer now if you haven't
noticed already i have the lighting set up i even dilated my eyes just for you so that you can kind
of see the reflection of the light coming out of my pupil and this is completely normal sometimes
you'll accidentally get that in pictures if you have the angle just right and it's kind of a dim
environment the pupils are a little bit bigger the flash will go off of your camera and that flash
will go into the eye where it has vasculature a certain color to it and the light will bounce
back into the camera and you might have that red reflex or a red reflection or a red eye in your
pictures and this is something we as doctors actually can use during an eye exam as we're
examining children's eyes or even adult eyes we can actually see that reflection that red reflex
to determine if there are any abnormalities in one or both of the eyes and there are a few
things that that test can actually tell us it can maybe tell us if there's a refractive error in one
or both eyes meaning if there's a crazy amount of astigmatism or nearsightedness it can maybe tell
us if there's a micro eye turn or a strabismus in someone's eyes one reflex might be dimmer or
different than the other eye and something that we're looking for specifically in children is a
white or lighter reflex a white reflex in one of the eyes compared to the other eye this might be
a sign of something called a retinoblastoma that white reflection that you might see in an eye is
called leukocoria or a white reflex and that's exactly what you're looking for now one quick
note here while you're taking a picture shining a light inside the eye the reason why it might look
white or have a white reflex reflexes because it hits that retinoblastoma which is usually
a brighter look a brighter appearance and will reflect back to the camera now you might also get
this same white reflection if you get the angle just right and it hits the nerve of the eye the
nerve also has a bright color to it and sometimes that can cause a brighter or white reflex
a retinoblastoma is actually the most common form of eye cancer found in children
but it is really rare in fact only about 200 to 300 new cases of a retinoblastoma is diagnosed
in the united states every year a retinoblastoma is found in the retina of the eye where all the
visual nerve cells are that send the signal back to the brain for vision and a retinoblastoma
usually happens from a genetic mutation that causes cells to multiply and continue to grow
where they normally should have died now what happens is this will form a tumor that can
spread throughout the eye and more dangerously can actually spread to other parts of the body
specifically the brain or even go down the spine now there are a few other signs and symptoms not
just the white reflex in that eye that might have a retinoblastoma that i might have an eye
turn or a strabismus, it also might be swollen compared to the other eye that eye also might be
red compared to the other eye and the vision also might be poor compared to the other eye now there
are a few explanations to why children actually get a retinoblastoma one is that it can actually
be inherited from one or both of the parents that genetic mutation can be passed down to the child
also that child can also get that genetic mutation themselves in fact there's a theory out there
called the two-hit hypothesis where you could inherit that one genetic mutation and the child
actually gets a genetic mutation so it's kind of a double whammy there and that could cause a retinal
blastoma as well now usually when it's inherited from a parent you can get it in both eyes
right eye and left eye a lot of times if it's just a genetic mutation in the child themselves then it
could be just one eye most children that actually get a retinoblastoma are three and under now the
survival rate of a retinoblastoma is actually really good it's at 96 percent for a five-year
survival rate but this depends on how early you actually catch the retinoblastoma the later you
catch it the more chance it might have spread to the brain and the survival rate will go down
the treatment for the retinoblastoma actually depends on the size of the mass or the eye cancer
if it is large and there is a risk that it may spread to other parts of the body then
the treatment is enucleation, they'll actually take the eyeball out now if the retinoblastoma
or the eye cancer is small or maybe it's in both eyes and small as well the idea is to preserve
vision in that child's eyes and so there are chemotherapy treatments that they can target
that certain mass to try and get rid of the mass as much as possible without getting rid
of the eyeball now because early detection of a retinoblastoma is so important that's
why you'll see all these campaigns to help you know what to look for in the pictures
of your children's eyes and normally if you catch the angle just right you'll notice a
red reflex in their eyes it's called a red eye in the pictures in fact a lot of programs cell phones
cameras have a red eye filter or to get rid of that red eye in pictures now you still get that
red reflex in pictures and if you notice in your children's eyes if they have one eye that might
have a nice healthy red reflex and then one eye might be dim or dark or maybe even white or bright
then that's a sign that there might be something going on and that's when you don't even want to
wait because early detection is the best you want to go right into your eye doctor have them dilate
your child's eyes look inside their eyes they can actually do the red reflex test and also determine
if there is a difference in the reflection of the eyes but more importantly they'll be able
to look in the back of the eyes and see if there's something wrong now i actually tried on purpose to
get a red reflection in my daughter's eyes and my son's eyes and it was harder than i thought
it was going to be the cameras nowadays have a really good program to get rid of that red reflex
and it was very difficult more difficult than i thought the only way that i could get a slight
red reflection in my daughter's eyes was actually using my dslr camera if i tried to use my phone
the phone had a pre flash on it and the pre flash would constrict my daughter's eyes and
so i couldn't really see the red reflection and so i could set up my dslr camera to not have that
pre-flash and then that flash would surprise her and catch that red reflection coming back from the
eye now if you actually want to try this at home you want to do it in dim lighting so your child's
eyes will dilate a little bit so that'll give you your best chance to see that red reflection
and you want to space yourself you want to go back about four feet and then zoom in on to
your child's eyes and then take the picture now what's tricky is you might have a pre-flash or
a red eye filter on there that will constrict their their eyes and make it really tricky to get
that red reflection on there usually when i got that red reflection it was actually on accident
where i wasn't trying to get it i just happened to get that perfect angle perfect reflection but yeah
it's it's pretty tricky now there's a lot more detail that we can go into about a retinoblastoma
but i'll put more links in the description below if you want to find out more information about
this type of eye cancer as well as steps if you want to try and test out the red reflex
of your children's eyes hey thanks for watching the whole video i'm dr neal guymon, dr eyeguy
hopefully this didn't freak you out about having these weird reflections coming out of my eyeballs
i just thought it might be a good demonstration of what to look for but thanks for watching stay
focused and check out my other videos right there and i'll see you in the next video