The epidemiological challenge of the most frequent eye cancer: retinoblastoma, an issue of birth and death

Many papers on retinoblastoma open with a statement that it is the most common primary intraocular cancer in children and a rare disease. True enough. After reflecting a little longer on the epidemiology of eye cancer, however, this statement probably should be revised to read: “retinoblastoma is the most frequent primary intraocular cancer and is gaining importance rapidly.” Let us substantiate this claim and evaluate its consequences in some detail. First, just how frequent is retinoblastoma? Not an easy question to answer because investigators are estimating its incidence in many ways. A recent issue featured two papers on the subject from the Western hemisphere. MacCarthy and coworkers,1 who analysed data…