Retinoblastoma is a rare eye tumor of childhood that arises in the retina. It is the most common intraocular malignancy of infancy and childhood; with an incidence of 1/15,000–20,000 live births. The two most frequent symptoms revealing retinoblastoma are leukocoria and strabismus. Iris rubeosis, hypopyon, hyphema, buphthalmia, orbital cellulites and exophthalmia may also be observed. Sixty per...

Purpose To report a patient who presented with a very late-onset new growth of intraocular retinoblastoma, which occurred 11 years after the initial combined treatment. Observations A 12-year-old monoophthalmic female patient presented with bilateral familial retinoblastoma showing new growth of intraocular tumor after 11 years of complete regression following combined local and systemic trea...

Inactivation of both alleles of the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene (RB1), localised on chromosome band 13q14, is the crucial event for the development of retinoblastoma, a malignant tumour that originates from embryonal retinal cells. 2 Germinal mutation of one allele leads to a predisposition to retinoblastoma. Tumour development is initiated by inactivation of the second allele. In most f...

PURPOSE The authors have recently demonstrated that substance P and L-733,060 induce cell proliferation and cell inhibition, respectively, in human retinoblastoma cell lines. However, the presence of neurokinin-1 receptors has not been demonstrated in such cell lines, nor is it known whether other neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists exert antitumoral action against retinoblastoma cell lines. The ...

Culturing retinoblastoma tumor cells in defined stem cell media gives rise to primary tumorspheres that can be grown and maintained for only a limited time. These cultured tumorspheres may exhibit markedly different cellular phenotypes when compared to the original tumors. Demonstration that cultured cells have the capability of forming new tumors is important to ensure that cultured cells mode...

We have observed increased binding of retinoblastoma patients' sera to a retinoblastoma-derived cultured cell line (Y-79). This reactivity was mediated by the serum IgG fraction and was directed toward different tumor or target cell (Y-79, Molt, Raji, and fibroblasts) cultured in media containing fetal calf serum. Normal pooled serum IgG fractions did not demonstrate any similar binding. When t...

BACKGROUND The expression of CD24 has been detected in a wide variety of human malignancies. Downregulation of CD24 inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis in tumor cells, whereas its upregulation increases tumor growth and metastasis. However, no data on CD24 protein levels in retinoblastoma are available, and the mechanism of CD24 involvement in retinoblastoma progress has not been eluci...

AIMS This study aimed to examine the expression of Sonic hedgehog (SHH) signalling proteins in retinoblastoma and to evaluate its clinical significance. METHODS Seventy-nine enucleated retinoblastoma tumours were investigated immunohistochemically using antibodies against SHH pathway proteins, such as SHH, glioma-associated oncogene homologue (GLI) 1, GLI2, GLI3 and ABC binding cassette G2 (A...

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a major regulator in retinal and choroidal angiogenesis, which are common causes of blindness in all age groups. Recently anti-VEGF treatment using anti-VEGF antibody has revolutionarily improved the visual outcome in patients with vaso-proliferative retinopathies. Herein, we demonstrated that bevacizumab as an anti-VEGF antibody could inhibit differ...

Retinoblastoma, a neuroblastic tumor, is the most common primary intraocular malignancy of childhood. Patients usually present with leukokoria (white reflex or white pupil), detected in primary care. The mean age at diagnosis is 12 months for bilateral tumors and 24 months for unilateral tumors. If untreated, almost all patients die of intracranial extension and disseminated disease within two ...