What stage is my melanoma?
If you are diagnosed with melanoma, your doctor will do a process called staging. Staging is a way doctors: l Describe the cancer l Figure out where it is in your body and if it has spread to lymph nodes or other parts of your body l Figure out the best way to treat the cancer Your doctor may need to do more tests when they are staging your melanoma. Staging can be very complex and confusing. Ask questions about anything you don’t understand!
Checking your lymph nodes Your doctor may want to check if the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes. These procedures are usually done at the same time:
Wide local excision Removes the tumor and some surrounding, healthy tissue. This removes a larger area of healthy skin to remove any cancer cells left after the biopsy. Sentinel lymph node biopsy A surgeon removes the first lymph node or nodes that the melanoma is most likely to spread to. A pathologist then checks the nodes carefully to see if the cancer has spread. This is usually done for melanomas thicker than 0.8 mm (millimeters) deep and sometimes thinner, depending on certain features of the melanoma under the microscope. Having a sentinel lymph node biopsy will help you and your doctor know more about your cancer, its stage and what treatment might be right.
After learning all of this, you may even help prevent someone you love from getting a melanoma diagnosis!
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