Turn on cookies to sign in
Signing in saves your progress to your Curie account. We can only do that with cookies on — turn them on to continue.
When cancer spreads to the eye, the outlook is grim — and it hasn't gotten better. A new study spanning four decades found that patients with ocular metastases had a median survival of just 8.2 months, with no statistically significant improvement between 1979 and 2018. Despite major leaps in systemic cancer treatment, the prognosis for these patients remains stubbornly poor.
When cancer spreads to the eye, the prognosis is bleak — and decades of treatment advances haven't moved the needle. A retrospective study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology tracked 569 patients with ocular metastases treated at a single ocular oncology center over 40 years (1979–2018), and the findings are sobering: median survival was just 8.2 months, with 5-year and 10-year survival rates of 8.2% and 2.8%, respectively.
Breast cancer was the most common primary source (38.3% of cases), followed by lung cancer (27.9%). Most patients presented with visual disturbances, and the vast majority who received ophthalmic treatment were treated with external beam radiation therapy. While about half of treated eyes saw vision improvement or stability, tumor recurrence remained a real concern.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: Despite transformative advances in oncology — from targeted therapies to immunotherapy — survival for patients with cancer that has spread to the eye has flatlined. This signals an urgent need for therapies specifically designed to address ocular metastases, rather than relying on systemic treatments alone.
