Facial melanoma surgery

Back to Skin cancer melanoma. Your treatment team will recommend what they believe to be the best treatment option, but the final decision will be yours. Before going to hospital to discuss your treatment options, you may find it useful to write a list of questions to ask the specialist. For example, you may want to find out about the advantages and disadvantages of particular treatments. Read more about questions to ask your doctor.

The incidence of malignant melanoma appears to be increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world over the past 30—40 years and continues to increase in the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, and Europe. The behavior of head and neck melanoma is aggressive, and it has an overall poorer prognosis than that of other skin sites. The authors review the published literature and text books, intending to give an overall picture of malignant melanomas of the head and neck and a special emphasis on treatment considerations with controversies in treatment including biopsy, radiation therapy, sentinel node biopsy, and nodal dissection. Melanoma is a malignancy of pigment-producing cells melanocytes located predominantly in the skin but also found in the eyes, ears, GI tract, leptomeninges, and oral and genital mucous membranes. The incidence of malignant melanoma appears to be increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world over the past 30—40 years and continues to increase in the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, and Europe [ 1 — 3 ].

While melanoma is one of the most dangerous forms of skin cancer, promising new treatment options are improving quality of life and increasing survival rates for patients with advanced melanoma. Options include:. Ask your doctor to clearly explain the options that might work best for you, including details about the benefits and risks. Tumors discovered at an early stage are those that are confined to the upper layers of the skin and without evidence of spread. These melanomas are treated by excisional surgery and usually this is the only treatment required to successfully rid the patient of melanoma.

Growing up in Texas, Jim was no stranger to sun exposure. A year-round athlete, he also spent many summers landscaping, and he was proud of his golden bronze tan. To achieve this look, he purposely burned during his first intense sun exposure in spring, thinking that would be a good start on maintaining a tan through the summer.