Advances in management of melanoma

It is clear from the above that the sentinel node technique and assessment of circulating melanoma cells has provided important additional methods for staging and assessment of prognosis of patients with melanoma. Cure of the disease still depends on good quality surgery and implementation of quality control measures to ensure the adequacy of surgical removal of primary melanoma and regional lymph node metastases is fundamental to improvement in survival from the disease. Systemic medical treatments have yet to show any significant impact on the disease when given in an adjuvant setting or in treatment of metastatic disease. There is much hope that new initiatives in immunotherapy and in apoptosis research will provide more effective treatments of the disease.