Ocular and orbital metastasis from systemic malignancies.

One hundred and seventy adult patients and one hundred and forty-eight children with systemic malignancies were examined for ocular and/or orbital metastases. Thirty-six patients (11.3%) had intraocular and/or orbital metastasis. Twenty-nine of the 36 patients (80.5%) had orbital metastasis, five patients (13.9%) had intraocular and two patients (5.5%) had intraocular and orbital metastasis. The commonest malignancy producing ocular metastasis was carcinoma breast in females and carcinoma bronchus in males. Eight of the 17 children had orbital deposits from leukaemia (47%) and six from neuroblastoma (35%). One child had uveal infiltration from acute lymphatic leukaemia. Ophthalmic metastasis were treated by external irradiation and/or combination chemotherapy whenever possible. The mean survival was five months for intraocular metastasis and 15.6 months for the orbital metastasis in adults. Prognosis was very poor in children.