Bangalore-based Narayana Nethralaya has entered into an agreement with ‘Hospital for Sick Children’ (Sick Kids) in Toronto, Canada to give further impetus to treating retinoblastoma, an eye cancer that affects children below five years of age.
Facilitated by Healthy Kids International, a Sick Kids organisation that supports many international projects, the pact will facilitate improving Narayana Nethralaya’s capacity for genetic analysis and help in predicting chances of other members of the family being affected by retinoblastoma, Dr. K. Bhujang Shetty, Chairman, Narayana Nethrayalaya told reporters while announcing the agreement here on Monday.
“Retinoblastoma is an eye cancer that can potentially take the life of a child. The agreement is a major step in management of children’s eye cancer in India. The aim of the 25-year-old institute is that no child with vision and life threatening eye diseases will be turned away for want of finances”, he said.
Dr. Ashwin Mallipatna, Head of Retinoblastoma Services Narayana Nethralaya, who was trained at Sick Kids for two years by Dr. Brenda Gallie, an authority on the disease said, “Approximately one child in every 15,000 children is affected by Retinoblastoma. This is the most common cancer of the eye in India and third most common type of cancer in children here”.
