1. Retinoblastoma: Evaluation and Diagnosis

In 1809, a Scottish surgeon named James Wardrop wrote a monograph where he described a subset of fungus haematodes distinguishing them from other cases of “soft cancer,” “medullary sarcoma,” or inflammation. He was the first to recognize retinoblastoma (RB) as a discrete tumor arising primarily from the retina [1]. Virchow in 1864 used the name glioma retinae because of retinoblastoma’s similarity to intracranial glial tumors. Verhoeff, in 1922, observed the retinal origin and the presence of immature, embryonic cells that formed the tumor and coined the term retinoblastoma. In 1926, the American Ophthalmological Society accepted the term retinoblastoma and the older terms, such as glioma retinae and fungus haematodes, were abandoned [2]. In 1809, it was the astute clinical observations and descriptions of the disease that made the diagnosis of what we now know as retinoblastoma.