Oklahoma Children’s Hospital debuts targeted chemo for rare eye cancer, treats first child in state
By KOCO
Click here for updates on this story
OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — Oklahoma Children’s Hospital is pioneering a targeted chemotherapy treatment for a rare eye cancer in children, marking a significant advancement in pediatric cancer care.
Lincoln, a 20-month-old from Ramona, is the first child in the state to undergo this groundbreaking procedure for retinoblastoma.
“He is the most rambunctious and happy and run-around baby I have ever seen,” said his mother, Jennifer Stumpff.
Lincoln has conquered his first steps, his first words and now a major milestone for Oklahoma health care.
“Now, we are fighting cancer, which is not something I ever thought we would do, and it is the hardest thing as a parent to go through,” Jennifer Stumpff said.
For families dealing with the rare eye cancer, treatment used to mean leaving Oklahoma for specialized care, often facing the possibility of losing the affected eye.
“The old-school treatment for retinoblastoma was you just enucleate the eye. You take the eye out, because if it spreads, this is a life-threatening cancer. Kids used to die from this,” Dr. Michael Feldman, a pediatric and endovascular neurosurgeon at OU Health, said.
Now, neurosurgeons at Oklahoma Children’s are offering a new option. Instead of sending chemotherapy through the entire body, doctors can deliver it directly to the tumor using a catheter.
“Because we’re able to do doses directly to the eye, we can do higher concentrations that are really, really toxic to the cancer but really, really OK to the rest of the body,” Feldman said.
Lincoln has undergone the procedure four times, and doctors say that it is working.
“The biggest thing is to let other parents know there’s somewhere here close now,” his father, Ryland Stumpff, said.
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.