Changing the future of childhood eye cancer with genetic testing.

On October 26, Dr. P. Namperumalsamy, Chairman Emeritus of Aravind Eye Care System, inaugurated the Retinoblastoma Genetics Testing Lab at the Aravind Medical Research Foundation, in Madurai, India.

Retinoblastoma is a fast-growing, often fatal, childhood cancer of one or both eyes. In many cases, someone in the family – parent, sibling or grandparent – already has had retinoblastoma. Understanding whether the disease is inherited is critical to the patient’s treatment and prognosis, but until now, genetic testing has been too expensive for most Indian families.

We are grateful to the Allene Reuss Foundation, the Sohum Foundation, and many individual donors who have funded the lab’s development. The lab will offer affordable genetic testing to patients in India and throughout the developing world.