How are early-stage melanoma skin cancers treated?

How are early-stage melanoma skin cancers treated?

Harry Saperstein, MD, FAAD (Dermatologist, Clinical Assoc. Professor, Medicine, Private Practice and UCLA) gives expert video advice on: How are early-stage melanoma skin cancers treated?; What types of radiation therapy are used to treat skin cancer?; Does laser therapy have a role in treating skin cancer? and more...

Early stage melanoma skin cancers, or those melanomas which are localized just to the skin are treated by excision. You remove the melanoma and some adjacent skin and then you sew up the normal skin. That is virtually the only way early stage melanoma skin cancers are treated and it's extremely effective in removing what we call the primary tumour. When the melanoma has invaded into the skin, perhaps greater than 2 millimetres, the margin of skin around it that we remove is usually two centimetres. Anywhere short of two millimetres, the margin of skin is usually around one centimetre on both sides of the tumour and then when that is removed, the skin is brought together. If the lesion is totally removed, then that lesion is gone. Our concern then shifts to whether or not any of the cells in that lesion had already metastasised either to lymph nodes or to other parts of the body, and then treatment needs to be directed towards that problem. The original primary lesion, though, has already been removed surgically. When the lesion is very superficial, a superficial excision with a very narrow margin is virtually 1% curative.