Watch the video above: Sick Kids doctors save eye of boy, 3, with rare cancer. Cindy Pom reports.
TORONTO – A young boy who came to Canada for treatment of a rare cancer, has had his eye saved after several laser treatments, surgery and chemotherapy.
“Well the outcome is he’s seeing very well and he has no active tumour in his eye,” Brenda Gallie, a doctor specializing specifically in retinoblastoma cancer at Sick Kids Hospital said. “We can see in his eye very well and know that there’s nothing in danger there. No dangers lying there right now.”
Wei Wei, 3, was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, which develops in the cells of the retina. He was diagnosed with the disease when he was 18 months old. He lost his left eye to the disease before his parents brought him to Sick Kids Hospital in an attempt to save the other.
“I went from the lowest of the lows to the highest of the highs,” Wei Wei’s mother Ping Yan said. “They didn’t just save my son’s life, but saved our entire family by giving us hope. My son means the world to me.”
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Wei Wei first arrived in Canada in Feb. 2013. At the time, he had a large white tumour in his eye that needed to be removed.
But the treatment was difficult. Doctors couldn’t use traditional chemotherapy to treat his cancer because they feared it could activate his Hepatitis B.
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And the tumour was “hard to kill,” Gallie said. At one point, the tumour floated into the inside of his eye and doctors had to utilize a new chemotherapy technique to treat it.
“We have a very good outcome now,” Gallie said. “Of course it still needs to be very closely watched because if something starts up again, which it could, in a small spot, it will be easy to control.”
In addition to the various therapies, Wei Wei also had to go back to China in June to undergo a high risk surgery not performed in Canada. He then returned to Toronto where he received several more laser treatments.
The total cost of the hospital bill is just under $94,000. Wei Wei could have received some laser treatment in China, Gallie said, but Sick Kids has more lasers and more advanced types allowing them to treat the eye differently based on each situation.
The family had to raise the funds for travel and treatment. While the doctors waived their fees at Sick Kids Hospital there were costs for the use of hospital equipment. The family mortgaged their home in China and received donations from friends and family there. They also received approximately $32,000 from people in Toronto and Vancouver.
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