Toward a Cure for Eye Cancers

As a result of impressive progress made in basic studies of normal and malignant cells, investigators now appear to be on the threshold of discovering the fundamental causes of several forms of human cancer. Biochemists, virologists, immunologists, and electron microscopists have opened pathways that may have a great impact on the successful management of the cancer patient.In recent years, increasing evidence has accumulated that suggests that viruses play a role in the cause of many types of human cancers. Fulfilling Koch's postulates in relation to the causation of human cancer by a virus is notoriously difficult. Evidence to date consists of the demonstration of virus-like particles in tumor cells, the presence of an apparently virus-related enzyme in certain human cancers; the demonstration of common tumor-specific antigens and antibodies against particular forms of human cancer; and an analogy to experimental and spontaneous animal malignant tumors. Of the cancers studied in