Melanoma Chemotherapy

Melanoma is a type of cancer that affects the skin and is recognized by the dark spots that appear on the dermis. In order to treat melanoma, diagnostic tests must first be completed and then the cancer team will be able to recommend one or maybe more treatment options. Melanoma chemotherapy is one of the possibilities here. Anyway, patients should consider these treatment variants extensively by learning all the can on the implications. Proper information on the alternative treatments is the first step. The procedure will normally be established depending on the disease evolution and the thickness of the primary tumor.

Surgery and melanoma chemotherapy represent the main alternatives here. There are different choices in as far as surgery is concerned, depending on where and how advanced the melanoma is. Thus doctors might consider re-excision, amputation or lymph node dissection. If melanoma has spread from the skin to distant organs, then surgery will not be a curable option to use. Therefore, melanoma chemotherapy might be the solution. Systemic chemotherapy involved in such procedures normally uses injectable anticancer drugs.

Drugs are either administered intravenously or orally. Melanoma chemotherapy drugs travel through the bloodstream to all parts of the body. The direct impact of the active substances will be on the cancer cells affecting skin, organs and lymph nodes. The drugs kill cancer cells but, unfortunately they also destroy some normal cells as well. The blood producing cells in the bone marrow, the hair follicles and the cells in the gastrointestinal tract represent the first collateral victims of the chemical cancer bombarding. As a result, patients will go through temporary side effects like nausea and vomiting, mouth sores, loss of appetite and loss of hair.

Melanoma chemotherapy drugs include temozolomide, cisplatin, vinblastine, DTIC, BCNU and tamoxifen. DTIC can be used alone or with other chemotherapy drugs like BCNU and cisplatin. DTIC, BCNU and cisplatin in combination with tamoxifen, which is a hormonal medication commonly used in treating breast cancer, bear the name Dartmouth Regimen. Then there is another combination of DTIC, cisplatin and vinblastine to use against melanoma. To give one other melanoma chemotherapy drug example, we ought to refer to temozolomide, a modern medication administered orally.

Since melanoma chemotherapy drugs kill normal blood cells as well, patients might experience low blood cell counts and this can lead to bleeding or bruising after even minor cuts or injuries, fatigue (frequently because of low red blood cell counts but also because of chemotherapy itself) and an increased infection risk (because the number of blood cells drops too).

Filed Under: Chemotherapy