My mother was diagnosed with melanoma on her hand and it had spread to the eye. She is on chemotherapy but was also told to get surgery for her “intraocular” melanoma. Wouldn’t chemotherapy work for the eye too?

Intraocular melanoma is a rare tumor often remaining asymptomatic for years and presenting as progressive and painless visual loss.  Ultrasound of the eye is the most sensitive test for diagnosing the lesion and MRI is often performed to determine the extent of tumor invasion.  Chemotherapy for her melanoma will not treat the intraocular melanoma as that is often treated promptly with surgical enucleation or radiotheraphy to prevent further vision loss.