Tests determined that Benny had a rare cancer called retinoblastoma.
Little Benny was just rolling around in his crib when his mom noticed something unusual on the baby monitor — one of the child’s eyes was glowing while the other was dark.
The Utah mom took her 6-month-old to the pediatrician, who recommended they an ophthalmologist.
Tests determined that Benny had a rare cancer called retinoblastoma.
Dr. Eric Hansen treated Benny and told Inside Edition Digital it’s curable in 95 percent of patients if caught early enough.
“[The child’s mom] noticed that there was a bright glow in one eye, but in the other eye it was just black. There was an absence of that glow and it seemed to persist no matter Benny's position,” Dr. Eric Hansen, University of Utah Health, Primary Children’s Hospital said. “
"Benny is doing very well, and he's finished his chemotherapy. We've still done consolidation, local therapy that would be laser in his case for areas of small recurrence, which is common in kids who have the retinoblastoma gene mutation," he added. "But he's doing quite well and has a very good prognosis from both cure as well as kind of having a stable eye exam and keeping the eye and then trying to maximize vision moving forward.”
The doctor says while children should be screened for retinoblastoma during their early well-child visits, most cases are caught by family members who notice something that doesn’t quite look right.
In this case, that discovery was made early with the help of technology.
“For me, this is the first time that this is the way that retinoblastoma has been caught. And it certainly is kind of a little bit reassuring or positive like, hey, these baby monitors not only are keeping kids safe from all the other things that parents are worried about and are considering, but also might be a way that this thankfully rare pediatric cancer can also be identified earlier,” Dr. Hansen said.
