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Melanoma

 

            What is melanoma? Melanoma is a "skin disease in which cancer cells are found in the cells that color the skin." It occurs mainly in adults but it does occur in children and adolescents. "More women get melanoma than men." It is sometimes called cutaneous melanoma or malignant melanoma. "Melanoma is a more serious type of cancer than the more common skins cancers." "People most at risk from melanoma include those (1) with a high number of moles, (2) with read or fair hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and freckles, (3) who tan with difficulty and burn in the sun, and (4) with a history of the disease in two or more family members. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and biological therapy can treat melanoma. What are the warning signs of melanoma? Melanoma has five different stages. It is divided into four basic categories: superficial spreading melanoma, lentigo maligna, acral lentiginous melanoma, and nodular melanoma.
             Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and biological therapy are the four ways to treat melanoma. Surgery is the "primary treatment for all stages of melanoma." A doctor can use one of the following operations to get rid of melanoma: (1) conservative re-excision, (2) wide surgical excision, and (3) to take skin from another part of the body and put it where the melanoma was. Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill the cancer cell. Chemotherapy is called systemic treatment because "the drug enters the bloodstream, travel through the body and can kill cancer cells throughout the body." When it shows up on your arms and legs, chemotherapy can be used with a technique called isolate arterial perfusion. "In this method, chemotherapy drugs are put directly into the bloodstream of the arm of leg when the melanoma is found. Chemotherapy has been found out to not be effective. Radiation therapy uses " high-energy x-rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. "Radiation may come from a machine outside the body or from putting materials that produce radiation through plastic tubes in the area where the cancer cells are found.


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