Syrian Girl Moved From Intensive Care After Successful Eye Surgery in Russia

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A one-year-old girl from Syria, brought to Moscow for eye cancer treatment, was transferred from an intensive care unit after a successful surgery, the deputy head of the Research Institute of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology told Sputnik Thursday.

On Monday, Russian medics carried out a complex surgery on the youngest patient transferred from Syria, a one-year-old, diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer.

"We have transferred her [from the intensive care unit] by night-time on Monday. She is with her aunt, everything is fine… There have been no complications during the surgery," Vladimir Polyakov said.

The doctor added that the medics were waiting for the pathology report on tumor tissues to see if the chemotherapy session should be scheduled for Friday.

According to Polyakov, two or three such sessions will be required depending on the tumor’s reaction. The process is expected to take more than a month before the girl can be transferred to Moscow's S.N. Fyodorov Eye Microsurgery Complex for further treatment.

The doctor also said that recovery after retinoblastoma surgery does not usually take long and the girl might have an ocular prosthesis fitted as soon as Thursday.

"As the child is growing up, if everything is all right with the second eye, the prosthesis has to be changed every six months," Polyakov said.

Polyakov also said that the Syrian patient was receiving treatment in Russia on pro bono basis.

Retinoblastoma develops in retina, the light-detecting tissue of the eye, and is usually found in young children. The probability of becoming the victim of this type of cancer is one out of 10,000.