What types of tumors affect the eye?
Malignant tumors can metastasize to the eye, just as they can metastasize to other parts of the body. The most common cancers that affect the internal structures of the eye originate in the breast, lung, prostate, and bone marrow (leukemia). Typically, these cancers cause tumors within the eye after the cancer has been diagnosed elsewhere. Metastatic tumors within the eye are usually treated with systemic chemotherapy, which also fights the cancer in other parts of the body. Occasionally, radiation therapy has been used to treat the eye more directly. Tumors can also originate within the eye itself. The most common primary malignant tumor that occurs in the adult eye is a choroidal malignant melanoma (see photo above). This typically occurs silently in patients at an average of 55 and older. It occurs much more frequently in Caucasians. Sunlight does not appear to play a role in the development of these cancers as it does in skin melanoma. What is a choroidal melanoma and how is it dia
