Melanoma Treatment
Melanoma is a surgical disease according to Dr. Geoffrey Young, Chief of Head & Neck Surgery at Miami Cancer Institute, who also explains that the first treatment is to remove the melanoma and then depending on the depth of the melanoma there may be an additional procedure called sentinel lymph node that's required.
This is a procedure where the doctor checks the lymph node and looks for cancer inside it. This information is used to give a prognostic decision about what should be done beyond that. “Predominantly in early stages, melanoma is a surgery treated disease," the doctor adds.
In addition, Doctor Guilherme Rabinowits, Co-Leader of Head & Neck Oncology at Miami Cancer Institute mentions most studies show that if the patient has a positive lymph node disease it is convenient to start adding therapy drugs. Immunotherapy could make the same changes that were previously made with radiation.
