Woman is diagnosed with lung cancer after losing vision; understand the relationship

Summary
A 32-year-old woman had unusual symptoms related to loss of vision and sensitivity to light, before being diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer that affected both eyes.

A 32-year-old woman had unusual symptoms before being diagnosed with lung cancer. The Indian woman, whose identity was not revealed, presented loss of vision in her right eye and sensitivity to light in her left eye.

Apparently healthy and a non-smoker, she sought medical help 20 days after the onset of symptoms. The case study was published in the July issue of Radiology Case Reports.

According to the study, the woman had no pain or redness around her eyes, nor injuries or problems in other parts of her body. Exams found a large lesion below the retina of the right eye and a similar, but much smaller, lesion in the left eye.

The patient underwent a chest x-ray which showed a nodule in the lower part of her right lung that doctors suspected was cancerous.

After carrying out other tests, tumors were found in several organs of her body and she was diagnosed with lung carcinoma with choroidal metastasis (membrane that surrounds the eye) in both eyes. This type of cancer develops in the eyes in about 0.1% to 7% of metastatic lung cancer cases.

Doctor Alok Pratap Singh of the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences says that despite widespread malignant involvement, the patient was completely asymptomatic and active except for visual disturbances.

“This case further emphasizes the need for immediate and priority evaluation of patients with lung carcinoma whenever equivocal intraocular lesions are observed,” the expert wrote in the case study.

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