ROCHESTER, MINN. – Mayo Clinic eye specialists report promising short-term results with an experimental diode laser treatment for selected small cancerous melanomas in the eye.

They found that the treatment with the infrared laser, called transpupillary thermotherapy, controlled the growth of cancers in all but one of 20 patients treated for this unusual condition. No recurrences of cancer were noted in the remaining 19 patients during follow-up ranging from six months to longer than three years.

The authors report that the laser treatment avoids some of the late complications of radiation therapy, the usual method of treatment for this cancer. But they say that the laser treatment has some complications of its own, including partial vision loss in some cases. They caution that longer follow-up is necessary to assure that the cancers do not recur. The report appeared in a recent issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

Mike O'Hara
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