Retinoblastoma is the most common malignant intraocular cancer in children. It normally affects children during the development of their retina, typically below 5 years of age. Decision upon how to treat each patient is guided by risk factors for metastasis development. It is still being debated whether and when adjuvant therapy should be prescribed in this population. Specifically, it has been suggested that it should be considered only for extremely high-risk cases, such as in presence of sclera or optical nerve invasion, in its postlaminar portion, observed after enucleation of the eye. The increase in the success rates of the conservative treatments of the eyeball makes it difficult to study the histological characteristics of retinoblastoma. Therefore, protocols and tools to study cancerous tissue in each patient must be developed and validated.

Researchers from ICFO and Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu are working on a joint project to use Raman microscopy to study, ex vivo, the different cells that constitute the tumour and evaluate the degree of differentiation as well as the different infiltrated ocular structures due to retinoblastoma. The main goal is to develop tools to better evaluate the risk of metastasis in each patient.