Skin Cancer Cure

A skin cancer cure depends on the type of skin cancer you have. Surgery cures more than 90% of both squamous cell skin cancer and basal cell skin cancer.

In some cases of skin cancer, you may need radiation treatment. Depending on the stage and size of the skin cancer, you may need reconstructive surgery.

If you have Stage 1, 2, or 3-skin cancer, surgery will remove the tumor to cure you. Stage 4 squamous cell skin cancer is more difficult to treat. You may need radiation or chemotherapy to cure you. More than 95% of people with squamous cell skin cancer survive beyond five years.

Melanoma Skin Cancer

Doctors call melanotic skin cancer, malignant melanoma. It is the most severe kind of skin cancer. Skin cancer surgeons perform a Mohs skin cancer surgery.

This surgery takes slivers off the tumor and examines all of the slivers with a microscope. When the cancer cells are gone, the surgery is over. The cancerous tumor is gone.

Your doctor will usually look in your lungs, your lymph nodes and your colon for more cancer cells. Malignant melanoma can spread to other parts of your body. CAT scans can see cancerous tumors.

Skin Cancer Metastasis

Skin cancer can spread from one tissue to another. A facial skin cancer may travel to the nose, the sinuses or the mouth.

Skin cancer can spread through the lymph system. Cancerous cells are often in the lymph nodes of your body. Lymph nodes are scattered throughout your body.

Skin cancer can spread through the bloodstream. This is how it travels to other organs. Common places for melanoma to travel are the lungs, the brain and the colon.

When the skin cancer melanoma travels to another part of your body, it will form a tumor. This is metastasis. Surgery usually comes first. Radiation and/or chemotherapy are two other options for treatment. ?

Latest Treatments for Malignant Melanoma

A new treatment for malignant melanoma came out in 2002. It was a treatment called Oncophage. Oncophage is a vaccine that works with the body’s immune system to kill off metastatic melanoma.

Patients receive the Oncophage vaccine each week. The drug trains the body to fight off malignant melanoma cells. It kills off the cancer cells because it recognizes them as being foreign to the body.

The immune system will leave healthy cells alone. It will target proteins on the malignant melanoma cells. Oncophage, made from the patient’s own immune cells, targets cancer cells only.

A Skin Cancer Cure?

Not everyone survives skin cancer. This is especially true of malignant melanoma. Localized malignant melanomas have a survival rate of 99%. Fortunately, doctors find 80% of malignant melanomas at the local stage.

In spite of excellent treatments for skin cancer, there were about 12,000 deaths from skin cancer in 2009. Two-thirds of those were from malignant melanoma. One-third was from more rare types of skin cancer.

More research needs to be done to affect a skin cancer cure for all types of skin cancer.
If you have any questions, please send them along. We are always happy to hear from our readers.

Margaret Stenerson
July 13, 2010