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Malignant melanoma: What treatment did you have?
Hello all, I was recently diagnosed with malignant melanoma. I had 3 moles removed, 2 from my upper right chest, and one from middle lower back. The 2 on my chest are cancer, one is melanoma, and the other has pre cancerous cells. I am having surgery on Sept 20th to remove more skin around the 2 moles on my chest, and the description on the Mayo portal says Excision split thickness skin graft lower extremity, excision full thickness skin graft lower extremity, and flap closure skin/soft tissue defect. I have been looking those descriptions up but reading different answers. I was just curious if anyone else has had these procedures done and what I can expect. I am very nervous about the whole thing.
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Hi! It's my first time here. I'm 57 and recently diagnosed with melanoma. Mole already removed and sentinel node as well. Biopse stated the melanoma was grade 3. I had a PET SCAN revision and no metastasis were found.
Next week I'm having a complete videodermascopic revision. The oncologist told me to undergo ecographic check every 3 months and Tomographic ones every 6 months.
As Ronnie stated we didn´t use to care much about the sun when we were children, it was not an issue people in general were talking about. I don´t even know if sunblockers even existed.
I am not undergoing any treatment just those control procedures I mencioned.
Hope you are doing well!!
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1 ReactionI had a large melanoma on my back that, for years, I thought was a Seborrheic Keratosis. It was removed in 1992 at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica. The sentinel nodes indicated it had not spread but as I had it for so long, they enrolled me in their Tumor Cell Vaccine clinical trial (spearheaded by Donald Morton, MD), which I was in for 6 years. The trial was eventually deemed not successful, but I've never had a recurrence. As I understand it, current immunology treatments are very similar to that trial. I have had many basal cell carcinomas and a couple squamous cell carcinomas. I was the only known member of the family, at that time, to have a melanoma. About 20 years ago, my eldest niece had a melanoma. Just last month her younger sister was diagnosed with a stage 3 melanoma and is now undergoing immunology treatment at UCSF. Their dad, my brother, lived until 80 and never had a melanoma. It would appear there is a family connection, The two nieces have had their DNA tested and have a similar gene believed to be related to the capacity to have a melanoma. We are now waiting for my daughter, who is about 10 years younger than the nieces, to have her DNA tested. One thing she has in common with the nieces is they all have a lot of moles.
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1 ReactionHello, @marcefromargentina. I'm glad that no metastasis was found. How did the video dermoscopy go?
Hi!!!! The videodermoscopy is due next Monday. Hope everything goes well. Thanks
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