OBJECTIVES To identify risk factors for metastatic disease on histopathologic specimens of enucleated eyes from patients with unilateral retinoblastoma, and to evaluate the value of chemoprophylaxis in preventing disease dissemination. METHODS Medical records from patients with unilateral retinoblastoma who underwent primary enucleation were reviewed at the University of California, San Franc...

Background: Acquired hyperopia with choroidal folds is a benign syndrome characterized by flattening of the posterior pole in the affected eye, enlargement of the optic nerve complex, and the presence of a perineural space. The mechanisms responsible for these findings remain unclear, although choroidal folds have a number of possible etiologies, ranging from benign causes to malignant intraorb...

OBJECTIVE To report integrative molecular analysis of choroidal melanoma fine-needle aspiration biopsy specimens to identify candidate tumor oncogenes. METHODS Thirty-one choroidal melanoma fine-needle aspiration biopsy specimens were analyzed using cytopathologic diagnosis of melanoma, fluorescence in situ hybridization for chromosome 3, cytogenetic characterization (GeneChip Human 250K NSPI...

PURPOSE To assess the degree of laser-induced choroidal neovascular membrane formation in wild-type (WT) and COX-2 null mice and to measure vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), interleukin (IL)-1β, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels in the retina and choroid. METHODS Four laser burns were placed in each eye of WT and COX-2 null mice to induce choroidal neovascularization. Fluoresc...

BACKGROUND Ciliary body location is an established prognostic factor for metastasis-related death from uveal melanoma. We evaluated alternative approaches for classifying this covariate when constructing predictive models of patient survival. METHODS AND DESIGN The analyses were based on a consecutive series of 1848 primary choroidal and/or ciliary body melanoma patients treated with proton b...

Objective. To investigate the efficacy of two different dosing strategies of radioactive iodine-125 ((125)I) in the management of small- and medium-sized posterior uveal melanoma. Patients and Methods. The medical records of consecutive patients with choroidal melanomas between 1.5 and 5.0 mm in apical height treated initially with (125)I plaque radiotherapy were reviewed. Patients were treated...

Angiogenesis is the process of neovascularization from parent blood vessels, which is a prerequisite for many physiological and pathological conditions and is regulated by a balance between endogenous angioinhibitors and angioactivators or angiogenic factors. Imbalance between angioinhibitors and angioactivators is associated with neovascularization capacity during progression of tumor developm...