UF Health Now Using Precision Radiation Procedure for Eye Cancer (UF Health Newsroom)

UF Health Now Using Precision Radiation Procedure for Eye Cancer

For patients with eye cancer, University of Florida Health ophthalmology specialist Gibran S. Khurshid, M.D., is sowing seeds of hope.

In Khurshid’s case, those seeds are tiny particles of radioactive iodine. Attached to a gold implant about the size of a contact lens, the “seeds” deliver tightly focused radiation to eye cancer, oruveal melanoma. Khurshid, an associate professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of ophthalmology, began doing the procedures earlier this year.

The implant, known as a radioactive iodine plaque, is sewn onto the surface of the eye. It stays there for four days, delivering precise doses of radiation to the cancer.

For patients, a plaque can be the difference between sight and blindness.

“If you go back just 25 years, patients were having their eyes removed because they had cancer. Now, we can actually treat the cancer and preserve the eye,” Khurshid said.

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