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Eye Melanoma – Complications, Prevalence, Prognosis, and Risk Factors

What are the complications of eye melanoma? What are the risk factors for eye melanoma? What is the prognosis of eye melanoma? What is the prevalence rate of eye melanoma? Is eye melanoma a serious and life-threatening disease?

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Complications, Prevalence, Prognosis, and Risk Factors for Eye Melanoma

New York (USA), May 03, 2018

What are the complications of eye melanoma?

The complications of eye melanoma may include:

1. Eye melanoma can spread outside of the eye and to distant areas of the body, including the liver, lungs and bones.

2. A growing eye melanoma may cause glaucoma.

3. Large eye melanomas often cause vision loss in the affected eye.

What are the short-term complications of eye melanoma?

The short-term complications of eye melanoma include decreased visual acuity, flashes, floaters, and visual field defects.

Eye melanomas can also cause vitreous hemorrhage, visual decline secondary to exudative retinal detachment, and radiation-related complications.

Is eye melanoma a complex condition, which can result in long-term complications?

Eye melanoma, also called ocular melanoma, is the most common type of eye cancer.

Small eye melanomas can cause some vision loss if they take place in critical parts of the eye. You may have trouble seeing in the center of your vision or on the side.

However, very advanced eye melanomas can cause total vision loss.

If eye melanoma is not treated, can it result in additional complications or lead to different health problems?

A melanoma is a type of cancer that develops from pigmented cells. We have pigmented cells known as melanocytes, in several parts of our bodies, including the eye. As most of these melanocytes are in the skin, the most common place for a melanoma to take place is in the skin.

In the majority of eye melanoma cases there are no identifiable genetic or environmental factors that may cause melanoma. Eye melanoma is one of the many tumors that arise sporadically.

What is the prevalence rate of eye melanoma?

Cancer of the eye is the only ocular disease, which directly threatens life.

The average annual incidence rate of new cases of eye melanoma in the United States is about 1 per 100,000 people. The estimated prevalence rate of total cases is about 12 cases of eye melanoma per 100,000 persons.

With few exceptions, eye melanoma occurs more often in whites than in blacks and more frequently in older than in younger people.

What is the prognosis of eye melanoma?

Doctors frequently use survival rates as a standard way of talking about prognosis for a person with eye melanoma.

The survival rate for persons with eye melanoma or localized ocular tumors receiving early treatment is almost 80 per cent.

What is the prognosis for a person with eye melanoma?

Overall, about 3 out of 4 persons with eye melanoma live for at least 5 years. Survival rates tend to be better for earlier-stage than for later-stage cancers.

However, accurate survival rates for eye melanomas based on a specific stage are hard to establish because these cancers are very rare.

Is eye melanoma a serious and life-threatening disease?

Melanoma of the eye can be life-threatening if it spreads to other organs. The goal of treatment for eye melanoma is to limit the growth of the tumor and stop it from spreading.

Eye melanoma is the most common primary malignant tumor of the eye in adults, predominantly found in Caucasians.

Local tumor control of eye melanoma is admirable, yet this malignancy is linked with relatively high mortality rate secondary to metastasis.

What are the risk factors for eye melanoma?

A risk factor is something that increases the risk of developing eye melanoma. It could be a behavior, substance or condition. Most cancers are the result of many risk factors. However, sometimes eye melanoma develops in people who do not have any of the risk factors described below:

In general, Caucasians tend to be affected by eye cancer more often than people of other ethnicities are.

The number of new cases of eye melanoma incidence diagnosed each year begins to swell in people in their early 30s.

Eye melanoma usually affects men and women equally. However, after the age of 50, it occurs more often in men.

What are the factors that increase a person’s risk for eye melanoma?

Known risk factors for eye melanoma are:

– Indoor Tanning

– Light-Coloured Skin, Eyes and Hair

– Ocular Melanocytosis

– Primary Acquired Melanosis

– Skin moles

– Welding

– HIV or AIDS

Possible risk factors for eye melanoma are:

– Eye Moles

– Family History of Intraocular Melanoma

– Gene Mutations

– Having Freckles

– Occupational Exposure

– Sun Exposure

How to identify and quantify risk factors for development of eye melanoma?

Risk factors for developing eye melanoma include:

1. Primary eye melanoma can occur at any age, but most occur in people over age 50 years.

2. Certain professions such as chemical workers, farmers, fishermen, laundry workers, and welders have a higher risk of eye melanoma.

3. Eye color

4. Light skin

5. Certain inherited conditions such as dysplastic nevus syndrome in which persons have abnormal moles of the skin and an increased risk of skin melanoma, may also raise the risk for getting eye melanoma.

6. Sun exposure

7. The only known risk factor for primary lymphoma of the eye is having a weakened immune system.

Learn more about the complications, prevalence, prognosis, and risk factors for eye melanoma.

Eye Melanoma – Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment
Eye Melanoma – Definition, Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, Home Remedies, and Prevention