Treatment Options

The vast majority of skin cancers are treated by simple office-based or hospital day surgery. At Sturdy Memorial Hospital, we understand that the treatment plan for every patient varies depending on need, which is why our physicians offer in-office and day surgery, as well as a wide range of cancer therapy options for more complex cases, to offer the best possible outcomes for all our patients.

Medical Oncology

The medical treatment of skin cancer includes immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Adjuvant interferon for nodal disease is a standard immunotherapy treatment for melanoma that has spread to the lymph nodes. Interferons can make cancer cells too weak to protect themselves from the body's immune system, thus helping the patient's immune system to prevent the growth and spread of some types of cancer cells. Additionally, multiagent chemotherapy is available for skin cancer patients with advanced disease. This treatment is usually given only to patients whose melanoma has spread to numerous lymph nodes or to other organs in the body (Stage IV).

Radiation Therapy

Available at Shields Radiation Oncology Center Mansfield
The course of action taken for a patient's radiation therapy treatment is dependant on three factors: the type of cancer, the location, and the stage. The usual course of action taken for skin cancer treatments is primarily electron beam treatments for basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. For more advanced cases of skin cancers and melanoma, proton beam and electron therapy can be performed to include lymph nodes with the areas targeted by radiation.

Surgical

Wide local excisions (removals) for primary melanomas.

Intra-operative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadectomy, which is the excision of the first lymph node or group of nodes reached by metastasizing cancer cells from a tumor.

Radical lymphadectomy for regional metastatic disease, or the excision of all the lymph nodes in the area.

Surgical debulking for metastatic disease, which is a procedure to partially remove a surgically incurable malignant tumor in order to make subsequent therapy with medication, radiation, or other adjunctive measures more effective.