If your diagnosis is melanoma, your doctor needs to learn the extent, or stage, of the disease before planning treatment.

Staging is a careful attempt to learn:

• how thick the tumor is
• how deeply the melanoma has invaded the skin
• whether melanoma cells have spread to nearby lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Your doctor may remove nearby lymph nodes to check for cancer cells. The doctor also does a careful physical exam and, if the tumor is thick, may order chest x-rays or blood tests.

The following stages are used for melanoma

• Stage 0: In stage 0, the melanoma cells are found only in the outer layer of skin cells and have not invaded deeper tissues.
• Stage I: Melanoma in stage I is thin (no more than 1 millimeter (1/25 inch) thick and ulcerated OR it is between 1 and 2 millimeters (1/12 inch) thick and there is no ulceration
• Stage II: The tumor is between 1 and 2 millimeters thick with ulceration OR the thickness of the tumor is more than 2 millimeters. There may be ulceration. 
• Stage III: The melanoma cells have spread to nearby tissues through the lymph nodes (lymphatic system). 
• Stage IV: The melanoma cells have spread via the blood stream to other sites far away from the original tumor.
• Recurrent: Recurrent disease means that the cancer has come back (recurred) after it has been treated. It may have come back in the original site or in another part of the body.

Certain factors affect prognosis (chance of recovery) and treatment options.

The prognosis and treatment options depend on:

• The stage of melanoma (whether cancer is found in the outer layer of skin only or has spread to the lymph nodes or other places in the body)
• Whether there was ulceration at the primary site
• The location and size of the tumor

Although many people are successfully treated, melanoma can recur.

Melanoma may be treated with

• Surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Biological Therapy
• Radiation Therapy
• Combination (of the above) Therapy

At any stage of disease, you may have treatment to control pain and other symptoms of the cancer, to relieve the side effects of therapy, and to ease emotional and practical problems. This kind of treatment is called palliative care, supportive care, or symptoms management.