Treatment Options For Subungual Melanoma

Radiation Therapy

An individual who has a special case of subungual melanoma with specific circumstances may need to undergo radiation therapy to treat their malignancy. Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that utilizes high energy beams of protons, x-rays, or another form of radiation to cause damage to cancerous cells and stop them from growing. Cases requiring radiation therapy are those where the malignancy has metastasized to the lymph nodes or another tissue in the body. Surgery is still used in the treatment of these individuals to amputate the affected finger or toe and to excise all the affected lymph nodes.

Following surgery, radiation therapy is utilized to clear the lymph node basin of any leftover cancerous or precancerous cells. Radiation therapy is not always used in cases where only one or two lymph nodes needed to be dissected, but more for cases where extracapsular disease and or bulky lymphadenopathy were present. When subungual melanoma has metastasized to the point of the disease becoming terminal for the patient, radiation therapy may be used as part of palliative treatment to help reduce pain.

Chemotherapy

An individual may need to have chemotherapy as part of their treatment for subungual melanoma when other forms of treatment have proven unsuccessful. Since several other methods of treatment offer fewer adverse side effects with the same efficacy, chemotherapy is not used as a first-line option for any melanoma type cancers. Chemotherapy works best for melanoma that has spread into other tissues around the body. Drugs used in chemotherapy for certain forms of melanoma include dacarbazine, nab-paclitaxel, cisplatin, temozolomide, paclitaxel, and carboplatin. These may be administered independently or with one another based on the characteristics of a patient's malignancy.

Chemotherapy can be administered in creative ways in individuals who have cancer isolated to a limb. The procedure for this type of chemotherapy involves separation of the limb's blood flow from the rest of the body and isolating the circulation of chemotherapy drugs to the affected limb. The goal of chemotherapy administered in this way is to reduce chemotherapy side effects by keeping treatment isolated to the affected limb.