Surgery is the most common recommendation for treating the melanoma form of skin cancer. It is also the most standard in terms of treating a growth that has not been determined to spread beyond the affected area of the skin. During surgery, your doctor will remove the affected area as well as surrounding healthy tissue to make sure all the cancerous cells have been excised.

The Effectiveness of Surgery

The extent of the surgery you may be required to have will depend on the width and depth of the melanoma. If the growth is thin and has not spread to other parts of the skin, the biopsy procedure that the doctor will use to diagnose the cancer may be enough to remove the growth completely. If this is so, there will likely be no further surgery. However, in many cases, an additional surgery may be recommended so that more healthy tissue can be removed from around the site of the growth. This is to ensure that the cancer has been completely removed.

If the doctors determine during surgery that a large portion of skin has to be removed, they may also elect to perform a skin graft at the same time. A skin graft involves taking a portion of skin from another healthy part of the body to replace the skin lost during the surgery from the cancerous growth.

Surgery may also be recommended if the cancer has spread. If the melanoma has grown into the lymph nodes, you may have surgery to remove them. However, if the cancer has spread beyond the lymph nodes to other parts of the body, such as the vital organs, surgery will probably not be a realistic nor effective method of treatment. This is because surgery is most effective when the growth is still confined to a smaller area of the body and the skin there. If the growth has spread, doctors may elect to use other treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation.

Keeping an eye on any changes in your moles or skin in general will usually help to catch the melanoma in its earlier stages, when it can be more easily removed by surgery.