A team of doctors at the Bahrain Specialist Hospital recently saved a 76-year-old man from blindness caused by a rare eye tumor. The patient was suffering from a rare condition known as the ‘ocular surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN)’ that was previously misdiagnosed at other clinics as ‘pterygium’. His persistent symptoms of severe eye dryness and irritation in the right eye had led to the misdiagnosis of his actual condition. The OSSN is a type of tumor that usually develops on the eye surface and can potentially grow deep into the eyes, thereby resulting in blindness.
Proper diagnosis and treatment of this rare condition require a high index of suspicion by the attending physician. Men , especially between the age of 50 and 75 years , are more susceptible to developing this tumor. Some of the risk factors for OSSN include pale irises, fair skin, proneness to sunburn, previous history…
