The long-term effect of experimental beta-radiation therapy on the human cornea

Radiation treatment of the human eye has been utilized in the United States since the early 1900s. Beta-radiation therapy was generally accepted by the medical community as a treatment option for a wide variety of anterior and posterior segment conditions from 1930 to the early 1950s. By the 1960s, beta-radiation therapy had fallen out of favor due to dangerous side effects; however an updated radiation procedure is now in use in ophthalmology to treat anterior and posterior segment disease.

A 64-year-old Caucasian female presented for a routine eye examination with a history of experimental beta-radiation treatments to the eyes as a teenager. A high astigmatic refractive error was present and best corrected visual acuity was 20/40 OD, 20/30 OS. Slit lamp examination showed severe disruption throughout the lower third of both corneas, appearing densely calcified with inferior vascularization. The left eye had a central descemetocele. The patient's ocular and visual conditions were relatively stable and required no special treatment as of the writing of this report, decades after her original treatments.

This patient is one example of the long-term effect of beta-radiation treatment on the eye. Ongoing care is needed to monitor the ocular health and vision of these individuals as radiation effects may necessitate observation and/or care throughout the patient's lifetime. Follow-up on more patients who underwent beta-radiation treatment decades ago, should it be possible to do so, would provide further insight into the long-term anterior segment changes that can occur as a result of such treatment.