Malignant tumors can metastasize to the eye, just as they can metastasize to other parts of the body. Typically, these cancers cause tumors within the eye after the cancer has been diagnosed elsewhere. Metastatic tumors within the eye are usually treated with systemic chemotherapy, which also fights the cancer in other parts of the body. Occasionally radiation therapy has been used to treat the eye more directly.
Tumors can also originate within the eye itself.
This typically occurs silently in patients at an average of 55 and older. It occurs much more frequently in caucasians. Sunlight does not appear to play a role in the development of these cancers as it does in skin melanoma. Nowadays, most people are familiar with melanoma as a very dangerous type of skin cancer involving the melanocytes that give the skin its pigmented color. Skin melanomas are associated with unprotected exposure to the sun, especially in youth.