Gibbstown man recovers after pioneering eye treatment

A Gibbstown man is recovering at home this week following pioneering treatment for eye cancer, one of the first treatments of its kind to be performed in Ireland. Tony McDonnell from Gibbstown is out and about and planning to return to work shortly following the procedure which was carried out last week. The ground-breaking treatment carried out in St Luke’s Hospital involved a radioactive implant being inserted into his left eye for nearly five days to save his sight. The implant delivered targeted radiation to the tumour. It is Tony’s second time to beat cancer as he was successfully treated for prostate cancer in 2004. He went into St Luke’s Hospital last Friday week to have the implant inserted. It remained in his eye for five days and he was released from hospital on Tuesday of last week. Because the radiation is delivered locally in the eye, he will not suffer any of the other side effects of external beam radiotherapy treatment. Tony was diagnosed with melanoma of the eye last September when he felt something in his eye. “It wasn’t painful and I didn’t lose my sight, but I just knew it wasn’t right,” he said. He was delighted that he was able to be treated in this revolutionary way. “It saves going for therapy every day. If it happened a few years ago, I could have lost my eye and, even if it happened earlier this year, I would have had to travel to Liverpool to have the treatment,” he said. He has paid tribute to the speedy response of all the medical staff he attended since he visited his GP, Dr Seamus Kiernan, in September. Dr Kiernan referred him to opthalmologist, Dharm Pandeya in the Abbey Medical Centre, who sent him to the Mater Hospital the next day. From the Mater, he was sent for pre-surgery diagnosis at the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin. He says he was very lucky it was detected and treated so quickly. Tony is a well-known member of the Gibbstown community and a former committee member of Wolfe Tones GAA Club and works for Midland Waste. Eye cancer is quite rare and around 30 patients a year are expected to benefit from the development.