- Conjunctival cancer or conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma is a cancer of the surface of the eye.
- It most commonly affects older Caucasian people.
- The cancer appears as a yellow pink or white nodule on the surface of the eye and can be easily seen.
- Squamous cell carcinoma can invade and destroy the eye because it is locally invasive.
An 89-year-old female patient presented to the ophthalmology clinic with complaints of redness in the eye associated with the sensation of a foreign body in her eye.
The examination of the fundus, pupillary response and intraocular pressure showed no abnormalities. A slit lamp examination was further performed to confirm the diagnosis which showed a red and raised lesion on the conjunctiva extending onto the cornea. The lesion was accompanied with prominent blood vessels and telangiectasia. There were no signs of regional lymphadenopathy. The appearance of the lesion was consistent with the diagnosis of neoplasia.
The patient was advised surgical resection of the lesion with reconstruction of the tissue defect using an amniotic membrane graft. Histopathological examination of the resected lesion confirmed the diagnosis of conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma.
The patient was put on 4 weeks of adjuvant therapy with topical mitomycin C. There were no signs of local recurrence at 2-year follow-up.
References
Vicini, G., & Mazzini, C. (2020). Conjunctival Squamous-Cell Carcinoma. New England Journal of Medicine, 383(10), e65.
