The Comprehensive Cancer Center
Melanoma Program
Diagnosis and Treatment
The melanoma program team at the Comprehensive
Cancer Center offers the most innovative diagnostic
methods and treatments—many that are not available
elsewhere in the region. |
Evaluation of the diagnostic biopsy by an expert dermatopathologist
is essential. Our dematopathologists evaluate all specimens, even
those that were initially biopsied and read at other facilities.
We plan the patient's next step in surgical treatment and care
based on the extent of the disease indicated by our dermatopathologists'
reports.
A typical patient has one multidisciplinary visit, surgery, and
then returns to the referring physician for follow-up and monitoring.
While surgery to excise the suspicious area continues to be the
first step in treatment, caring for patients with melanoma is
much more complex.
Innovative methods
The melanoma program team at the Comprehensive Cancer Center
offers the most innovative diagnostic methods and treatments—many
that are not available elsewhere in the region.
- Sentinel lymph node detection enables us to determine
whether or not melanoma has begun to spread while it is still
at a very early stage, which is an enormous advantage in developing
a course of successful treatment.
- We are one of a few medical facilities in the country to use
mole mapping, which utilizes a set of two digital cameras.
One camera uses epiluminescence microscopy to allow us to see
a deeper layer of skin, where pigment changes are apparent;
and the other takes images of larger skin surfaces to create
mole "maps." These maps are used to monitor patients
as well as to enable patients' self-examination, resulting in
earlier physician involvement when a suspicious area is found.
- Our pigmented lesion unit specializes in using photography
and dermoscopy to evaluate and monitor patients who have numerous
or unusual looking moles because such patients have an increased
lifetime risk for developing melanoma. Patients whose blood
relatives have had melanoma are also at increased risk, and
the pigmented lesion unit monitors those patients to ensure
that any suspicious area is immediately evaluated.
Leading-edge research 
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Melanoma Program
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