Can melanoma be cured

The incidence of melanoma is not high, but once the disease progresses to a serious stage, the possibility of cure will decrease a lot. When melanoma develops in the early stages, most patients have a high cure rate through surgical treatment, but if it is treated in the late stages, the possibility of cure is basically small. So, can melanoma be cured?

Whether melanoma can be cured depends on the severity of the melanoma. In addition to surgical treatment, there are three other methods to cooperate with the treatment: chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy.

First, let’s talk about chemotherapy. This treatment method is mainly used for melanoma that has metastasized. It is mostly used in malignant patients. It can alleviate symptoms and help patients prolong their lives.

Melanoma can also be treated with radiation. Radiation therapy is mainly used to relieve pain. It is generally not used to treat primary melanoma, but is mainly used as a palliative treatment when it metastasizes to the brain or bones.

Immunotherapy is also a commonly used treatment method. The principle of this therapy is to improve the patient's own immune system to fight against cancer cells. Currently, the two most commonly used immunotherapy drugs in clinical practice are based on cytokine, which can play a positive role in shrinking melanoma. Cytokine is a type of protein that can act on the human immune system to make it work.

Melanoma can also be treated by surgery. If the volume of the melanoma is less than ten millimeters, a biopsy is generally not required before surgery. This type of melanoma can be completely removed at one time. It should be noted that the resection line of this melanoma needs to be slightly away from the tumor, mainly for complete removal. The surgical principle is to remove more if the malignancy is high and less if the malignancy is low. To be clear, the distance between the resection line and the tumor is generally about eight millimeters. Of course, in addition to surgical treatment, this disease can also be treated by non-surgical methods.

Some melanomas may be far from the eyelid margin, while others may be small in scope. For such melanomas, it is recommended to directly treat them with radiotherapy. The efficacy of radiotherapy for this type of melanoma can be as high as 90%. If the melanoma is of the freckle type, extensive excision must be performed, and sometimes excision needs to be combined with skin grafting.