Radiation Therapy for Skin Cancer

Treating Skin Cancer

The treatment you receive depends on several factors, including what type of skin cancer you have, your overall health, stage of the disease and whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body.

Melanoma:

• Because these can be highly aggressive tumors, surgery to remove a wide area is usually the primary treatment option.
• Melanoma can spread into the surrounding lymph nodes, which are the tissue draining stations. In most instances, the surgeon will also biopsy or remove these draining lymph nodes.
• Radiation therapy is sometimes recommended after surgery for either the primary site or for the lymph nodes, if there is a concern that the surgeon might not have removed all of the disease. After surgery, it will be important to talk to a radiation oncologist to see if radiation would be right for you.
• Interferon therapy, which is a type of biologic therapy, is sometimes offered, if there is concern that your melanoma has a high risk of developing distant (metastatic) disease. You will want to talk to a medical oncologist, a doctor who prescribes chemotherapy, about these issues is more detail.

Basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer

• These tumors are typically not as aggressive as melanoma, and there are many treatment options available.
• Surgical excision may be used, particularly Mohs Surgery (MMS), which is a special surgical approach using microscopic evaluation to map and remove all of the cancerous tissues, while preserving as much healthy tissue as possible
• Curettage and electrodessication (C and D, EDC) is typically used for smaller lesions (less than one centimeter). The cancer is dried with an electric current and removed.
• Cryosurgery is also used for small lesions that are not deep (this is called superficial). The cancer cells are frozen and eventually rub off naturally.
• Laser surgery can be used for superficial lesions. This is when cancer cells are destroyed by laser beams.
• Radiation therapy is an effective treatment often used for skin cancers where surgery or other localized therapies might cause functional or cosmetic defects.
• Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is primarily used in the treatment of actinic keratosis. It uses a drug that is very sensitive to a special kind of light. This drug is topically applied to the lesion. When exposed to that special light, the drug produces a chemical reaction that kills the cancer cells.
• Topical therapy is an application of a drug cream (Imiquimod or 5-FU) over the tumor. These drugs then locally kill the cancer cells.
• Sometimes a combination of approaches may be used, such as surgical excision followed by radiation therapy, if there is a concern that the surgeon may not have completely removed all of the tumor.