Little girl gets 'superhero eye' after cancer battle forced her to have hers removed

An eight-year-old girl who had to have her eye removed due to cancer is proudly showing the pink sparkly ‘superhero’ prosthetic replacement.

Daisy Passfield, from Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, was diagnosed with a grade D tumour in her retina when she was 14 months old in October 2015

Retinoblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of eye cancer that usually affects babies and young children, mainly under the age of five.

The most common symptoms are a quint and a white glow in the eye or pupil in dim lighting or when a photo is taken using a flash.

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Daisy's mum, Alysia, said that she first noticed there was something wrong while looking at a picture of her.

"I noticed from a photograph - she had a white glow in her eye and her eye had a glaze on it,” she said.

Alysia said she was ‘relieved’ to finally have a diagnosis, and added: "I knew there was something wrong. Obviously I was upset and in a bit of a shock.

"Daisy was absolutely fine, she took it in her stride, and she has six rounds of chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumour."

But after two months of treatment, the youngster relapsed, resulting in her having her right eye removed in a four-hour operation at the age of just two-years-old.

Previously, she had received a newer procedure, intra arterial chemotherapy, which delivers chemotherapy drugs directly to the eye rather than around the body to shrink the tumour.

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Daisy was given a general anaesthetic for the treatment, which involved passing a catheter through the femoral artery, all the way up until it is in the ophthalmic artery.

Once the catheter is in place the chemotherapy drug is administered via the tube and is able to work directly on the tumour/tumours in the eye.

However the tumour broke into different parts and the family did not want it to spread - which is why they opted for her eye to be removed completely.

Daisy had a blue prosthetic eye fitted after the surgery to match her eye colour, but she has now opted for a pink version as she is a fan of 'all things glitter'.

After her pals said the new eye prosthetic looks befitting of a unicorn or dragon, Daisy is delighted.

“I feel happy because everyone can see my pink sparkly eye,” Daisy said. "I am so excited to show everyone at school my sparkly eye.

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"I think they will love it just like I do. Everyone I have spoken to has said how lovely it is. I have been told it looks like a superhero eye, a dragon's eye and a unicorn eye and I like all those things."

Childhood Eye Cancer Trust says 50 cases are diagnosed a year in the UK - or one child a week.

It represents 3 percent of all childhood cancers and 10 per cent of cancers in babies under the age of one in the UK.

For help and support please visit the NHS page on retinoblastomas here.