there are several treatments for skin cancer. your melanoma diagnosis, age, location, and general health are some of the factors that should be taken into account when you are considering your options. treatments exist in the following broad categories that could be tailored to fit your needs:
chemotherapy
these drugs are used to treat many types of cancers by impacting the cancer cells’ ability to grow or multiply. due to their impact on non-cancer cells, these treatments can have side effects.
combination therapy
the combination of two or more therapies.
immunotherapy
immunotherapy is a drug treatment that uses the human body’s own immune system to fight cancer. it may be administered to patients intravenously in the chemotherapy unit of the hospital, but it is not the same as chemotherapy.
a number of cancer immunotherapies have been developed using different strategies to help boost the body’s immune response. some immunotherapies help your immune system attack the cancer directly and some help to enhance your body’s immune response to fight the cancer. for example, some cancers trick the immune system by switching off certain pathways so that cancer cells are no longer recognized, allowing them to continue to grow. one type of immunotherapy helps fight cancer by switching on the pathways that the cancer cells have switched off, so that the immune system begins to recognize and attack the cancer. there are several other approaches to cancer immunotherapy as well.