Melanoma is a type of cancer that affects the skin and is recognized by the dark spots that appear on the dermis. These skin surface formations do not represent the only symptoms of the disease, more conclusive tests are performed before passing the initial cancer diagnosis and establishing a potential treatment. Melanoma chemotherapy represents a first option to fight skin cancer. Anyway, patients should consider these treatment variants extensively by learning all the can on the implications. First of all, patients ought to understand everything about the treatments. The procedure will normally be established depending on the disease evolution and the thickness of the primary tumor.
Among the treatments for melanoma there are options like surgery and chemotherapy. The diversity of choices increases when it comes to determining the most advantageous form of surgery for the evolution and the location of the melanoma. Thus there are lymph node dissection, re-excision and amputation to decide on. 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 relies on injectable anticancer drugs.
These are usually injected into a vein or taken orally. Melanoma chemotherapy drugs travel through the bloodstream to all parts of the body. They attack cancer cells which have already spread beyond the skin to lymph nodes or other organs. The drugs kill cancer cells but, unfortunately they also destroy some normal cells as well. Among these normal cells that can be killed are blood-producing cells of the bone marrow, cells that line the gastrointestinal tract and cells of hair follicles. As a result, patients will go through temporary side effects like nausea and vomiting, mouth sores, loss of appetite and loss of hair.
Among the melanoma chemotherapy drugs we ought to mention temozolomide, cisplastin, DTIC, tamoxifen, vinblastine and BCNU. Combinations between these various medications are possible and often recommended. DTIC, BCNU and cisplatin combined with tamoxifen, which is a hormonal therapy drug commonly used breast cancer treatment, are known as the Dartmouth Regimen. Then melanoma is also treated by a combination of vinblastine, cisplastin and DTIC. 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 reduce the blood clotting speed for instance, excessive tiredness (experienced because of the anemia and the medical treatment in itself) and an increased chance of infection (because of white blood cell shortage).