New guidelines for melanoma diagnosis and treatment

Malignant melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer, usually has a grim prognosis. Sadly, malignant melanoma has increased world-wide, to five times what it used to be 30 years ago. It is also responsible for 90% of skin cancer deaths. I knew someone who had this diagnosis and it was surprising how quickly it spread.

According to a press release, Dangerous skin cancer, German researchers have come up with a new set of guidelines to diagnose and treat the disease.

The German Cancer Society recommends specific treatments or therapeutic combinations, depending on the thickness of the tumor and its stage. For example, if the tumor has more than a specific thickness, it is recommended that the primary tumor should be surgically removed, together with the sentinel lymph nodes and in combination with immunotherapy. If surgical removal is not possible, radiotherapy is indicated. If there are distant metastases, physicians should perform monochemotherapy.

Translated into more simple terms, it means that the different treatment options should be based on how deep the cancer is and to what stage it has spread. The primary tumor is where the cancer first started and the sentinel lymph nodes are the first lymph nodes where cancer cells are filtered, or the closest ones. Finally, immunotherapy is treatment that uses your own immune system to fight the cancer, metastases is the spread of cancer, and monochemotherapy is the use of one type of chemotherapy drug, rather than a combination. So, in plain English, that reads:

The German Cancer Society recommends specific treatments or therapy combinations depending on how deep the tumor is and how far it has progressed. For example, if the tumor is more than a certain thickness, it is recommended that the tumor that started it all is removed along with the closes lymph nodes, to be followed by immunotherapy. If surgery isn’t possible, then radiation treatment is the next choice. If the cancer has spread beyond the initial area, then chemotherapy with one type of drug is the recommendation.

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Tags: cancer blog, guideline for melanoma diagnosis, guidelines for melanoma treatment, malignant melanoma