In 1931 I published the results of a microscopic study of the incidence of invasion of the optic nerve by retinoblastoma. The report was based on a series of 119 enucleated eyes containing retinoblastoma. In 53 per cent of the eyes the tumor had extended into the optic nerve beyond the lamina cribrosa. . . . The globes from which these statistics were gleaned were enucleated between the years 1878 and 1929, a period of fifty-one years.
. . . In this recent series of 116 eyes with retinoblastoma enucleated since 1934, only 10, or 8 per cent, showed that the operative section was not beyond the tumor extension into the nerve.
. . . I therefore believe that, on the basis of the arguments presented in this paper, there is no justification for the combined intracranial and orbital operation for retinoblastoma.
Reference: Reese AB. Invasion of the optic nerve . . . [Full Text of this Article]