Choroidal melanoma of the eye, or uveal cancer, is the most common and dangerous form of a disease that inflicts over 2,000 people each year. The cancer can occur in people of any age, and can quickly spread to the liver and lungs - often proving fatal. The typical treatment method requires radiation which - while killing the cancerous tumor - leaves half of all patients legally blind within years in the treated eye.

In a quest to save their eyesight, Dr. Scott Oliver, director of the Ophthalmic Oncology Center at the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute on the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus, has experimented with substances that would block the radiation from striking critical structures of the eye, while still allowing it to hit the tumor.

Oliver has discovered that silicone oil applied inside the eye can block up to 55 percent of harmful radiation, enough to prevent blindness in most patients.

"You don't have to block out all the radiation to protect the eye because the vital structures in the eye can tolerate low doses of radiation," he said.

His findings, published in the July issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, may revolutionize the way eye cancer is treated.

"We are now at the point where we can embark on a clinical trial," Oliver said. "This is a significant development in the way we treat this disease. In the past, we could save the eye with radiation but we saved vision only half the time. With this treatment, I believe we will do much better in the future."

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