Possible Treatment-Need Advice

josh,
you can search the board for interferon. there are lots of different opinions on interferon . my oncologist recomended radiation and interferon ( 1 month HD and 11 month LD ). I decided to go with their recommendation . 4 weeks ago I finished 12 months of interferon. to be honest it was not easy, but I was able to work the entire time. take a look at my profile . I documented my year of interferon. my melanoma was on the back of my head, I was staged at IIb. This is a great place to come and ask questions. I have learned a lot from the great people on this board.

Scot

josh,
you can search the board for interferon. there are lots of different opinions on interferon . my oncologist recomended radiation and interferon ( 1 month HD and 11 month LD ). I decided to go with their recommendation . 4 weeks ago I finished 12 months of interferon. to be honest it was not easy, but I was able to work the entire time. take a look at my profile . I documented my year of interferon. my melanoma was on the back of my head, I was staged at IIb. This is a great place to come and ask questions. I have learned a lot from the great people on this board.

Scot

josh,
you can search the board for interferon. there are lots of different opinions on interferon . my oncologist recomended radiation and interferon ( 1 month HD and 11 month LD ). I decided to go with their recommendation . 4 weeks ago I finished 12 months of interferon. to be honest it was not easy, but I was able to work the entire time. take a look at my profile . I documented my year of interferon. my melanoma was on the back of my head, I was staged at IIb. This is a great place to come and ask questions. I have learned a lot from the great people on this board.

Scot

If PD Melanoma is staged the same as MM then you are in relatively good shape.  You should be Stage IB, if I read your profile correctly.  Your prognosis should have been very good.  I am surprised your doctors are recommending these treatments versus just scans at this stage. 

You can search both treatments on this site and learn more than you'll ever want to know. 

Treatment at early stages is a very personal decision.  You need to weigh the side effects and the effect on your immune system against the benefits.  You also need to ask if either of the treatments actually show that they extend survival?  After that make an informed decision.

 

 

Good Luck

Mary

Stage 3

Wait and Watch

NED 21months

If PD Melanoma is staged the same as MM then you are in relatively good shape.  You should be Stage IB, if I read your profile correctly.  Your prognosis should have been very good.  I am surprised your doctors are recommending these treatments versus just scans at this stage. 

You can search both treatments on this site and learn more than you'll ever want to know. 

Treatment at early stages is a very personal decision.  You need to weigh the side effects and the effect on your immune system against the benefits.  You also need to ask if either of the treatments actually show that they extend survival?  After that make an informed decision.

 

 

Good Luck

Mary

Stage 3

Wait and Watch

NED 21months

If PD Melanoma is staged the same as MM then you are in relatively good shape.  You should be Stage IB, if I read your profile correctly.  Your prognosis should have been very good.  I am surprised your doctors are recommending these treatments versus just scans at this stage. 

You can search both treatments on this site and learn more than you'll ever want to know. 

Treatment at early stages is a very personal decision.  You need to weigh the side effects and the effect on your immune system against the benefits.  You also need to ask if either of the treatments actually show that they extend survival?  After that make an informed decision.

 

 

Good Luck

Mary

Stage 3

Wait and Watch

NED 21months

Dr. Richards is my mel specialist also.  He is a wonderful man!  My guess is, knowing him, he will want to see the scans first and then suggest a treatment (ie: the "might"). 

I wish I had had more thorough scans after my first encounter with mel.  My onc at the time was only checking my chest and lungs and it showed up in my lymph nodes which I found. 

Good luck with your decision.

 

Karin

Dr. Richards is my mel specialist also.  He is a wonderful man!  My guess is, knowing him, he will want to see the scans first and then suggest a treatment (ie: the "might"). 

I wish I had had more thorough scans after my first encounter with mel.  My onc at the time was only checking my chest and lungs and it showed up in my lymph nodes which I found. 

Good luck with your decision.

 

Karin

Dr. Richards is my mel specialist also.  He is a wonderful man!  My guess is, knowing him, he will want to see the scans first and then suggest a treatment (ie: the "might"). 

I wish I had had more thorough scans after my first encounter with mel.  My onc at the time was only checking my chest and lungs and it showed up in my lymph nodes which I found. 

Good luck with your decision.

 

Karin

Odd as it may sound,, your diagnosis of  what is actually "Solitary Dermal Melanoma" is one of my favorite areas of research…………….no I am not a doctor or clinician; just your basic serial cancer patient that started out with an unknown primary 24 years ago,, which is closely associated with SDM.

Your onc team iare clearly not rookies,  because even to reach this accurate and pinpointed diagnosis is rare………………….it is a complex pathological diagnosis that is missed more than it is found. within the subtypes of melanoma; of which there are many.

I'm including a link for you from the John Wayne Cancer Institute and although now two years old , is one of the most exhaustive examinations of not only SDM but Unknown Primaries that I ever found.

Of note is they started with almost 13 thousand melanoma patients, granulated that down to 900 with unknown primaries and even further granulated it to 100 patients with SDM.

In case the web page  link  comes up with with a pocket view in PDF, left  click on the "iview as HTML" button.

If you are unaccustomed to reading scientific abstracts (who is?), scroll down to the bottom and read "Conclusions", that pretty much gets down to what you are asking.

And just in case it is all to convuluted to read………..here is that conclusion

 "

Conclusions

Patients with SDM have survival characteristics not unlike those associated with intermediate or thick primary melanoma, and therefore should undergo wide excision and regional staging with SNB. Because patients with regional nodal metastasis from SDM have a prognosis similar to that for patients with regional nodal metastasis from a known primary melanoma, they should be managed for regional rather than distant disease  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l4n38h3760k75805/fulltext.html

Please keep us posted.

Cheers,

Charlie S

Odd as it may sound,, your diagnosis of  what is actually "Solitary Dermal Melanoma" is one of my favorite areas of research…………….no I am not a doctor or clinician; just your basic serial cancer patient that started out with an unknown primary 24 years ago,, which is closely associated with SDM.

Your onc team iare clearly not rookies,  because even to reach this accurate and pinpointed diagnosis is rare………………….it is a complex pathological diagnosis that is missed more than it is found. within the subtypes of melanoma; of which there are many.

I'm including a link for you from the John Wayne Cancer Institute and although now two years old , is one of the most exhaustive examinations of not only SDM but Unknown Primaries that I ever found.

Of note is they started with almost 13 thousand melanoma patients, granulated that down to 900 with unknown primaries and even further granulated it to 100 patients with SDM.

In case the web page  link  comes up with with a pocket view in PDF, left  click on the "iview as HTML" button.

If you are unaccustomed to reading scientific abstracts (who is?), scroll down to the bottom and read "Conclusions", that pretty much gets down to what you are asking.

And just in case it is all to convuluted to read………..here is that conclusion

 "

Conclusions

Patients with SDM have survival characteristics not unlike those associated with intermediate or thick primary melanoma, and therefore should undergo wide excision and regional staging with SNB. Because patients with regional nodal metastasis from SDM have a prognosis similar to that for patients with regional nodal metastasis from a known primary melanoma, they should be managed for regional rather than distant disease  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l4n38h3760k75805/fulltext.html

Please keep us posted.

Cheers,

Charlie S

Odd as it may sound,, your diagnosis of  what is actually "Solitary Dermal Melanoma" is one of my favorite areas of research…………….no I am not a doctor or clinician; just your basic serial cancer patient that started out with an unknown primary 24 years ago,, which is closely associated with SDM.

Your onc team iare clearly not rookies,  because even to reach this accurate and pinpointed diagnosis is rare………………….it is a complex pathological diagnosis that is missed more than it is found. within the subtypes of melanoma; of which there are many.

I'm including a link for you from the John Wayne Cancer Institute and although now two years old , is one of the most exhaustive examinations of not only SDM but Unknown Primaries that I ever found.

Of note is they started with almost 13 thousand melanoma patients, granulated that down to 900 with unknown primaries and even further granulated it to 100 patients with SDM.

In case the web page  link  comes up with with a pocket view in PDF, left  click on the "iview as HTML" button.

If you are unaccustomed to reading scientific abstracts (who is?), scroll down to the bottom and read "Conclusions", that pretty much gets down to what you are asking.

And just in case it is all to convuluted to read………..here is that conclusion

 "

Conclusions

Patients with SDM have survival characteristics not unlike those associated with intermediate or thick primary melanoma, and therefore should undergo wide excision and regional staging with SNB. Because patients with regional nodal metastasis from SDM have a prognosis similar to that for patients with regional nodal metastasis from a known primary melanoma, they should be managed for regional rather than distant disease  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l4n38h3760k75805/fulltext.html

Please keep us posted.

Cheers,

Charlie S