An attentive mother may have saved her child’s life when she noticed something strange on his baby monitor. Her heads up also gave doctors the time to save her son’s eyesight.
“Everybody loves Benny. And I think it can't imagine how hard this is further, you know, for Benny and his mom, but I think that they feel a good sense of support,” said Dr. Matthew Dietz, a cancer specialist at Primary Children’s Hospital.
The image that changed Benny’s life was when his mom noticed one eye reflecting in the light, the other not on his baby monitor.
“For this particular patient, the mom noticed in the baby cameras, the monitors we have over the cribs that, hey, the light, you know, a lot of times there's this white kind of like, reflection coming off of the eyes and it wasn't in one of the eyes and consistently wasn't there,” said Dietz.
Mom didn’t just notice – she followed up.
“And you know, you can always ask lots and lots of questions, but I think it would be reasonable, especially if there's any concern in the back of your head as a parent about something with the eyes of the vision...ask,” said Dietz.
The question led to a diagnosis – retinoblastoma. A cancerous tumor was interfering with the light in Benny’s eye.
“Not all childhood cancer has the same early detection benefit…and retinoblastoma is when we're early detection of it really matters,” said Dietz.
In the recent past, early detection may be led to a cure, but it would have been a tough cure.
“Historically, if the tumor was big enough, we had to just take the eye out, because in general, if you can treat retinoblastoma when it's just in the eye, very high chances of cure,” said Dietz.
But Benny still has both eyes. Just 10 or 15 years ago, chemotherapy would have meant an IV drip and hoping a general treatment would attack the very localized problem. Now, radiologists can directly target the offending cells in an infant’s eye.
“What's the difference in prognosis? Because that's happened so early? Yeah, I think it’s great for Benny, you know, he's off therapy. He has vision - some vision in the impacted eye. He still has good vision in the other eye, which really is great for his ability to see and navigate in the future. He has not had kind of any significant cancer recurrence. And I think he's on the road to having retinoblastoma be a thing of the past,” said Dietz.
Pediatricians are trained to see retinoblastomas in the eye during well child checkups, but if you ever see something questionable like Benny’s mom did, don’t be afraid to ask.
