Melanoma Cancer Stages

Question: what is stage 3 melanoma cancer??? how bad is it? will she die?...? this melanoma cancer stage 3 my friend has. She is about 27 and is very short and tiney and skinny. What will happen? she will be doing radiation and cemo

Answer: According to the statistics, she has a 50-68% chance of surviving the next 5 years. Not really great considering she is going through chemo therapy and radiotherapy which will not make her feel good. She should take good advice so the treatment she gets doesn't ruin her quality of life. Be by her side, support her, pray and hope for the best.

Question: Stage 4 Melanoma Cancer: Anyone who has dealt with this disease offer suggestions that are not chemo? We have tried chemo, but the liver and kidneys shut down, so we were forced to stop. We are now at a hospital in Mexico that encourages a strict alkalaine diet to help combat the growth of cancer. We are set to return home in 3 weeks.

Answer: You have a good start with the diet, ozone therapy is also very effective to people that chemo has hurt. It can cure cancer by itself even if the immune system is shot. For more information on that and other treatment check out the site below. My wife has stage 4 lymphoma and is making a miraculous recovery.

Question: What would be good to put in a care packge for my friend who has Stage 4 Melanoma (cancer)?

Answer: A scrapbook for the both of you to work on. It'll bring back happy memories and help bring you closer to your friend. It'll be something that they will look forward to showing and working on. That can mean a lot.

Question: MY DAD HAS STAGE 3 MELANOMA CANCER IM UNSURE OF WHAT THAT MEANS ? they removed a lymp node and theyy sstill want him to do the inferion treament anyone know what all of this means and how severe it is pleeesssee help

Answer: There are three degrees of stage 3; 3A, B and C. Removing his lymph node is not treating the disease it is to obtain information to stage it. Unfortunately it is severe, as it has spread to his lymph nodes. Melanoma is very dangerous and unpredictable. There are several types and some are worse than others. There isn’t a standard treatment for this disease, as we haven’t found one that is effective yet. Interferon appears to be helpful in cases where there is no lymph node involvement. In cases like your Dad’s it often delays recurrence, but does not change overall survival. His doctors are hoping the interferon will delay recurrence for many years, if not forever. I have seen melanoma recur 30-40 years later. Best wishes to you and your family.

Question: How likely is it for an 72 year old male survivor of melanoma skin cancer to die before age 80? He first had a melanoma removed about 15 years ago. About 12 years ago doctors removed some lesions but said they were not melanoma. Then about 8 years ago two more melanoma were detected and removed. The biopsy on one of these said it was 2 cm wide, Stage IIA. 6 years ago (2002) a 4th melanoma was detected and removed.

Answer: From the information you gave there is no reason to believe he would die before 80, not from melanoma anyway. You should also know with melanoma the depth of invasion is more telling than the size.

Question: Has anyone survived stage 4 melanoma skin cancer? Doctors said that there's no way my mom can live. They say that she has anywhere from 2 days to a year to live. My mom says that she thinks it's only a couple of days till she goes. She's in the hospital right now and keeps getting a whole bunch of bruises all over her cuz of the blood or something. She won't do chemo cuz there's a smaaaaall chance that it will help her live longer. So has anyone survived even when the doctors said they won't? I'm praaaying that she lives and hoping soooo much. I can't stand not having my mom there when I have my first day of high school, graduating, marriage, grandchildren. I'm 14 and my brother is 17 and it's sooo hard.

Answer: I'm so sorry about your mom. She is making the right decision on chemo. She doesn't want to suffer any more than she is right now. I am so sorry.

Question: Can someone prepare me for dealing with a cancer death in my family? My uncle is coming to live with us today. He has stage 4 melanoma. When people say "they(cancer paitents) get really sick and die" what does that intale excatly? I herd they loose bowel movements, etc. Also he is refusing treatment.

Answer: I also answered your other question. What this entails varies from patient to patient. I strongly suggest you look into hospice now. They only deal with end of life conditions and specialize in keeping the patient as comfortable as possible. They are wonderful people and are great at answering your questions and helping the family too.

Question: Ok, I got cancer. It is the worse kind of skin cancer-melanoma? Now, I am single. When it is appropriate to tell new friends or even dates that I have this disease? I mean, it has been in remission 2 years now, but this kind of cancer, and the stage I got it at, says I just have a 60/40 odds of living 5 years. So, a new date might think "gee, I can't fall in love with him cause he might just die early, and that won't make a good spouse" However, I can't just hide it cause it is part of who I am?

Answer: It's one of the hardest things to hide and one to share. I also have cancer (NHL), blood cancer, in remission for 2 years and I'm also single. There is nothing to be a shamed of, if you feel comfortable with whom you are seeing , then you should share. I started seeing someone and I share my news and she understands and is dealing with it. We don't harp on it, but I put it out there and moved on with the relationship. If the person you are dating has a promblem with it then, they're not someone you really want to be with. It is part of your life and you can't change that even if you want to.

Question: Melanoma cancer questions? My mom had several moles removed on her back and stomach a few weeks ago. Doctors called and said it is melanoma. She's had blood work done and a CT SCAN (i think that's what it's called). Doctor called again today to say that it's "attached" and in her stomach. They are still waiting for the blood work to come back. To kind of calm my nerves between now and the time she goes in for final results and a "where to go from here" with the doctors, I have a few questions: 1. What do you think they mean by "attached"? 2. What stage do you think she is most likely in if it's attached in her stomach. 3. What will the blood work tell us? 4. I know melanoma is the worst of all skin cancers, but how likely is it that she would die from this? Any help would be great!

Answer: I assume when you say stomach you mean the skin over her abdomen and not the organ "stomach"... 1) Likely means they have not completely removed it, it went deeper (invaded) than the biopsy got 2) Can't determine staging with this little information. She could have three separate lesions, or could have already spread. Were all "moles" melanoma, or just one? 3) Probably not much, though if liver tests or LDH are abnormal could suggest metastatic disease 4) Depends on the staging.. Blessings

Question: I had Melanoma, people say it wasnt "real" cancer? when i was 26yrs old i got diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma. i am free and clear now (over 2 yrs ago). when i say I had melanoma alot of people acta nd/or say it isnt "real cancer" like breast or lung or somethin else. I am not someone who runs around screaming about being a survivor and wanted to be praised for living through cancer. but i have bad scars on my legs from surgeried for it , so the topic comes up often. What should i do about people making feel like my cancer wasnt "real" or "good enough"

Answer: MY MOM DIED OF MELANOMA CANCER. Melanoma's one of the worst type of cancers!!!!!! Just cuz you got stage 2 and the doctors were able to get rid of it doesn't mean that it isn't a real type of cancer! You were lucky that you found it before it got worse....and you're lucky that they were able to get rid of it!!!!!!!! The doctors cut my moms out before it was bad....but on the RAREST chances it came back; and it spread. My mom died within 4 days that she found out that it was terminal. It's hard growing up without my mom, this shouldn't have happened!!! LITERALLY!!!! Melanoma's horrible, and I hope that for you it is truthfully gone and will never come back.

Question: Where can you find truthful answers about bone cancer? My father has melanoma stage four cancer; he has had his lower lip removed 7 years ago, then his lymph nodes taken out 4 years ago. Now he has liver, lung, bone and brain cancer... He has already done radiation treatment and now is in clinical trials as of today. The doctors have stated they can try chemotherapy for the bone cancer after his clinical trials, but I have been doing research and the more I find it states there is know known cure for bone caner... Instead of letting this get to me, I find it helpful for me to do as much research as possible as I have no understanding of what tomorrow may bring for my father. Any links would be wonderful, Thank you in advance...

Answer: cdc.gov + bone cancer, search clinical trials, bone cancer can be quite painful. Your father has been through alot. You and him are very brave in this battle. american cancer society.org, can try international organizations or professional journals. the hospital may have a library resource with journals avail. sometimes the pharmacists and nurses involved have info resources for you

Question: How do you help a family member when they have cancer? My sister-in-law age 37, just found out the other day that she has melanoma stage 4. She has two boys age 10 and 15, no insurance of any kind and a husband of 11yrs that is soo torn up by the news of his wife. I want them to know I am there for them. They do not want to talk about the "what ifs", but reality is at any time something bad could happen. How can I help them with what they are going through? They live in Texas and I live in Alabama, so seeing them is a problem with distance. I am planning a trip to see them in July.

Answer: Dont give up, my dad had cancer too, stage four pancreatic cancer and was given 3 months, he went on other 11 months, why we went to a nutrition specialist, and recommended a huge intake of vitamins, one in particular Vitamin-C. Cancer lives off of sugar, so when a person takes a huge intake of Vitamin-C, cancer cells think they are eating sweet, but are eating acid, so they die. Oranges and limes are fruits and tend to make the cancer think they are eating sweets, but the fact is that those are sour fruits. I know that there are cures out there, but the government does not want you too know, because they will lose lots of money on the medical side. Best of luck and stay positive.

Question: Would McCain's declining health be seen by other countries as a weakness and vulnerability? He has end-stage melanoma (skin cancer) that has spread to his lymph nodes. If elected, would his worsening health be detrimental to our security? What if he passes away when elected?

Answer: I think he needs to release all of his medical records. I'll bet he's being treated for PTSD as well. We don't need such an unstable person with access to a nuclear arsenal.

Question: Does anybody know a doctor in California I can talk to about cancer? i need to talk to a doctor who knows about metastatic melanoma stage four. I need someone who is in california and that i can reach be email. please and thanx

Answer: Dr. Deepak Chopra right here on Yahoo Answers! He's a doctor and he's dealt with curing Dr. Wayne Dyer's wife of cancer. KAISER does not want to help people with real problems. They let people die if their really sick because its cheaper.

Question: Help If you have a clue, respond! Please? My husband has Melanoma cancer stage 2b. We have been given treatment options...melanoma vaccine or interferon. IF you have a story that might help in the decision making process or know of a chat room or bulletin board that is good let me know. Thanks

Answer: BELOW ARE TWO ARTICLES ON MELANOMA INJECTIONS AND INTERFERON Cancer Vaccine Ups Melanoma Survival Experimental Vaccine Also Fights Kidney, Colon, Other Cancers By Daniel J. DeNoon WebMD Medical NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MDOct. 12, 2005 - A personalized cancer vaccine extends survival for some late-stage melanoma patients, research shows. Melanoma is very dangerous skin cancer. Advanced stage IV melanoma kills about 90% of patients within five years of diagnosis. Patients with advanced melanoma are advised to seek clinical trials of experimental treatments. Now one of those trials seems to be helping the healthiest of stage IV melanoma patients. These so-called stage IV M1a patients are those whose tumors have spread just below the skin or to distant lymph nodes but haven't yet penetrated other organs. The study tested a vaccine treatment -- Oncophage, from Antigenics Inc. -- in stage IV melanoma patients. Oncophage is made from a patient's own tumor cells. It stimulates powerful immune responses that attack tumor cells remaining in the body after surgery. Two out of three patients got the vaccine; the other third of patients got whatever current treatment their doctors thought best. Antigenics released early results from the study this week. Oncophage, the company says, did not help patients whose melanoma already had spread to the lung (stage IV M1b) or to other organs (stage IV M1c). It was a much better story for the stage IV M1a patients. These patients lived at least 50% longer than those in the doctors'-choice-of-treatment comparison group. The comparison group survived a median of 12.8 months. The M1a patients treated with Oncophage survived a median of 20.9 months. That's exactly the patients one would expect to respond to a cancer vaccine, says researcher John M. Kirkwood, MD, director of the melanoma center at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Kirkwood leads the melanoma committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, one of the largest clinical cancer research organizations in the U.S. "A quarter or so of patients with advanced melanoma have this manifestation of soft-skin-tissue disease that does not involve internal organs," Kirkwood tells WebMD. "In that group we saw the impact of this vaccine." Earlier Treatment, Better Results? Based on these findings, Antigenics is designing a new clinical trial to target stage IV M1a patients. The new trial may also include patients with earlier-stage disease whose melanomas have been completely removed by surgery. Such patients -- who run a high risk of having their cancer come back -- may be the ones who benefit most from Oncophage. "The most rational application of this and all cancer-vaccine modalities will be the use of this vaccine for surgically treated patients who do not have any tumor remaining at all," Kirkwood says. That may very well turn out to be the case, says Garo Armen, PhD, Antigenics Inc. chairman and CEO. "If we can make a fundamental improvement in melanoma treatment, it would be terrific," Armen tells WebMD. "It is our opinion that Oncophage would be most effective in patients who are slightly earlier in the course of disease than traditional end-stage patients. This particular trial gives us an indication of that. We tested the vaccine in late-stage melanoma, in patients with an expected survival of six to 12 months -- but the healthier patients did much better. That is pretty much as our scientific information has told us it should be." As a melanoma vaccine, Oncophage is still experimental. The next clinical trial -- the one on which FDA approval would depend -- is still in the planning stages. However, since Oncophage is made from a patient's own tumor cells, it can be used in nearly any kind of cancer. The only limiting factor, Armen and Kirkwood say, is whether there is enough tumor to make the vaccine. About 3 to 7 grams are needed, as multiple injections work better than just a few. A clinical trial in patients with late-stage kidney cancer is drawing to a close. If the vaccine works in these patients -- and earlier trials suggest that it may -- the trial could be used to apply for FDA approval. How Oncophage Works Oncophage takes advantage of a sticky kind of protein called a heat shock protein or HSP. The body is full of HSPs. HSPs do a lot of things. One thing they do is to chaperone cellular proteins by helping them form correctly and moving them from one place to another. When a diseased cell dies, HSPs carry little snips of the dead cell's proteins to the immune system. Some of these protein snips are antigens that help the immune system seek out and destroy other cells with the same disease. To make Oncophage, Antigenics takes tumor cells removed from a patient and breaks them open. HSPs carrying tumor antigens are removed and used to make the vaccine. Making an individualized vaccine isn't cheap. Antigenics thinks a course of treatment will cost $10,000 to $20,000. Currently, researchers are studying the use of Oncophage vaccines for kidney cancer, melanoma, pancreatic cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colorectal cancer, and gastric cancer. THE NEXT ARTICLE IS ABOUT INTERFERON: Most skin cancers are detected and cured before they spread. Melanoma that has spread to other organs presents the greatest treatment challenge. Standard treatments for localized basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas are safe and effective and cause few side effects. Small tumors can be surgically excised, removed with electric current, frozen with liquid nitrogen, or killed with low-dose radiation. Applying an ointment containing a chemotherapeutic agent called 5-fluorouracil to a superficial tumor for several weeks may also work. Larger localized tumors are removed surgically. In rare cases where basal cell or squamous cell carcinoma has begun to spread beyond the skin, tumors are removed surgically and patients are treated with chemotherapy, radiation, or immunotherapy. Some patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma respond well to a combination of retinoic acid (a derivative of vitamin A) and interferon (a type of disease-fighting protein produced in laboratories for cancer immunotherapy). Retinoic acid also seems to inhibit cancer recurrence in patients who have had tumors removed. Melanoma tumors must be removed surgically, preferably before they spread beyond the skin into other organs or glands. The surgeon removes the tumor fully, along with a safe margin of surrounding tissue and possibly nearby lymph nodes. Neither radiation nor chemotherapy will cure advanced melanoma, but either treatment may slow the disease and relieve symptoms. Chemotherapy, sometimes in combination with immunotherapy -- using interferon -- is generally preferred. If melanoma spreads to the brain, radiation is used to slow the growth and control symptoms. Immunotherapy is a relatively new field of cancer treatment that attempts to target and kill cancer cells by manipulating the body's immune system. Some of the most promising developments in the field of immunotherapy have sprung from efforts to cure advanced melanoma. Some researchers are treating advanced cases with vaccines, while others are using drugs such as interferon and interleukin-2 in an effort to stimulate immune cells into attacking melanoma cells more aggressively. Genetic manipulation of melanoma tumors may make them more vulnerable to attack by the immune system. Each of these experimental treatment approaches aims to immunize a patient's body against its own cancer -- something the body cannot do naturally. People who have had skin cancer once are at risk for getting it again. Anyone who has been treated for skin cancer of any kind should have a checkup at least once a year. About 20% of skin cancer patients experience recurrence, usually within the first two years after diagnosis. Alternative and Complementary Therapies Once skin cancer is diagnosed, the only acceptable treatment is medical care. Alternative approaches may be useful in cancer prevention and in combating nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and headaches from chemotherapy, radiation, or immunotherapy used to treat advanced skin cancer. Be sure to discuss any alternative treatments you are considering using with your cancer doctor. Nutrition and Diet Skin experts know that the mineral zinc and the antioxidant vitamins A (beta-carotene), C, and E can help repair damaged body tissue and promote healthy skin. Now, researchers are trying to determine whether these and other nutrients might protect skin from the harmful effects of sunlight. To test the theory, selected skin cancer patients are given experimental supplements of these vitamins in the hope of preventing cancer recurrence.

Question: What is the survival rate of someone with melanoma in situ stage 1? I have this and the docs think i'll be fine but they have removed more tissue around where the cancerous mole was to test and i am still awaiting those results and to be honest i am so frightened. All i can think about is (GOD FORBID) dying and not seeing my 7 month old son grow up. Anyway basically i just want to know facts about the survival rates of this type of cancer. Thankyou in advance x

Answer: Stage IA: The 5-year survival rate is around 99%. The 10-year survival is around 97%. There is also a stage 0 that has a higher survival rate. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_3x_how_is_melanoma_staged_50.asp