Woman shocked to learn itchy eye was a rare, malignant cancer

Researchers are eyeing this extremely rare cancer.

A Chinese woman was diagnosed ocular melanoma after initially believing she had something in her right eye.

The 47-year-old, who is from Xian city, visited her local doctor last August after her eye had been itchy for two weeks.

She was stunned to learn that a small, malignant lesion was actually growing on the inside of her eyelid, which doctors classified as malignant melanoma – a serious type of skin cancer.

The woman’s story was published Thursday in New England Journal of Medicineresearchers noted that ocular melanoma is so uncommon that it only affects one in five million people.

The woman’s cancer was even rarer because the malignant lesions rarely grow on the inside of an eyelid.

Doctors found the “pigmented lesion” by performing an eyelid reversal – where a person’s eyelid lobe is pulled up when they look down, revealing what’s hidden in the upper part of the eye.

Medics noted the Legion was “large,” with a biopsy confirming it was cancerous.

The woman was offered surgery to remove the lesion, but given the delicate area in which she was positioned, the procedure was not without its risks.

She declined, opting instead to be treated with pembrolizumab — an antibody drug used to treat other forms of skin cancer.

The Legion has not increased in size in the seven months since diagnosis and the woman’s vision has not been affected.

Blurred vision or flashes in the eye are early signs of ocular melanoma. Around 80 percent of cancer patients are still alive five years after the initial diagnosis.