New books for young cancer patients

Barts and The London Charity is currently funding a range of books to help young patients with a rare form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma.

A generous donation of £1000 is helping to develop informative story books to prepare children and their parents for tests, diagnosis and treatment. The series of books will include information on an eye examination under anaesthetic, chemotherapy and enucleation (removal of the affected eye).

Barts and The London Children’s Hospital is the only centre in the South of England to treat retinoblastoma. In almost all instances, the disease is detected in children under the age of five.

Each year 40-70 children will be diagnosed with retinoblastoma in the UK. Due to the rarity of the disease, there are limited resources available. The Charity works closely with the retinoblastoma unit to provide better facilities for children and their families who are in the process of being diagnosed or treated.  

Tara Shea, Children and Young Person Involvement Facilitator, said: “Having your child diagnosed with cancer of the eye can be a very frightening time for parents, as well as the child themselves.  Donations made through Barts and The London Charity help to ensure that we can offer parents and patients the support and resources they need in order to effectively help them to cope with the diagnosis and the treatment process.”

• To support this project, please call the fundraising team on 020 7618 1720

Nearly all patients with retinoblastoma are children under the age of five