Abstract
Retinoblastoma has varied presentations. As age advances in retinoblastoma, the undifferentiated tumour is the common appearance. Apoptosis in retinoblastoma in an untreated case can give us a clue about the tumour biology. Efferocytosis in intraocular tumour is a new concept which was seen in an enucleated eyeball specimen in a 4-year-old boy. Effective efferocytosis can be conceptualized for new pharmacodynamics application for anti-cancer drugs. We present a rare case of retinoblastoma with efferocytosis in retinal pigment epithelium and interesting apoptotic changes.
Highlights
Retinoblastoma is the common intraocular tumour in children [1]
Efferocytosis is derived from the Latin word “effere” for “to bury”, and it is the process by which the dead cells are removed by macrophage phagocytic cells [3,4,5]
Apoptosis or programmed cell death is orderly and genetically controlled form of cell death which can be seen in the tumour or when chemotherapy induces such change in the tumour mass [5,6]
Summary
Retinoblastoma is the common intraocular tumour in children [1]. The survival of children with retinoblastoma, if diagnosed early, has gone up to 95% in advanced centers [1,2]. Apoptosis and programmed cell death in these tumours are important observations to understand the tumour biology [2,3,4]. Interesting pathological observations of apoptotic changes in a unilateral, undifferentiated and untreated case of retinoblastoma were seen where nuclear fragmentation and apoptotic vesicle arrangement were realized and macrophages in the process showed their phagocytic actions on the apoptotic vesicles. A new phenomenon of cell biology called “efferocytosis” was documented for the first time in the retinoblastoma
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