Marina Marinkovic talks about that one
LUMC staff members talk about that one patient and how he or she radically changed their perspective on their profession. Ophthalmologist Marina Marinkovic (52) operated on the first patient with ocular melanoma to receive proton therapy in the Netherlands. “It was nerve-wracking for him, but also for us.”
“Even limited vision is still better than the alternative: losing an eye”
“Until 2020, we always referred people with large ocular melanomas to a hospital in Switzerland. We didn’t yet have proton therapy in the Netherlands. With that therapy, you can very precisely target large tumors or tumors located in hard-to-reach areas. Some patients, mostly older people, didn’t want to go to Switzerland. They had never been abroad before and said, ‘Just take my eye out then.’
“In 2016, the Minister of Health, Welfare, and Sport granted a license for a proton therapy center in Delft. In the years that followed, I was involved in setting up the ophthalmology suite at that center and in drafting guidelines for proton radiation therapy for Dutch eye patients. We had to figure out all sorts of things. Which chair should we use? What radiation dose should we administer? Which eye drops should be used before and after treatment?”
“We also visited a hospital in London to see how they operate. We also received assistance from the center in Switzerland. I already had some hands-on experience with the surgery that precedes proton radiation therapy, as I had performed it before during a fellowship in Germany.”
“One day, we were ready. The building was there, the chair was in place, and the protocol was all set. Everyone was on edge, and then that first patient was about to arrive.”
