A man has thanked his optometrist for saving his life after spotting he was unknowingly living with a rare type of blood cancer.
According to a story published by the BBC, the cancer had been missed in numerous other medical tests before the man had his eyes checked.
The BBC said Mr Robert Campbell went for a routine eye test in January at Flint Optometry, near his home in Wolverhampton, when optometrist Ms Claire Williams became concerned.
She noticed a number of haemorrhages at the back of his eyes and he was soon called into New Cross Hospital, where he was told he had lymphoma.
Campbell said he had been feeling unwell for a while but multiple blood tests, a colonoscopy and an endoscopy had not detected the cancer, so it was a “shock” to receive the news.
“I got a call from a consultant at New Cross saying they wanted to see me now, so I went and he told me I’d got lymphoma,” he said in the story.
“I am grateful as without Ms Williams picking it up, I don’t know where I’d be now, I dread to think.”
He added that his cancer was now under control after undergoing chemotherapy.
Williams told the BBC that she made an immediate referral to hospital following his eye test.
“As I checked the peripheral part of the back of the eyes, I was able to see quite a number of haemorrhages and a third of them were even more unusual and very rarely seen,” she said.
Mr Peter Rockett, another optometrist at her practice, said regular eye tests were important as they could detect more than just poor vision.
He said: “You can see deep into the body through a convenient window, the pupil. So it is a great way to assess someone’s eye health as well as their general health.”
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