Depending on your specific melanoma type and stage, your treatment plan will likely involve more than one type of therapy, from more than one type of expert. This is why it’s important to seek care from a comprehensive cancer center, where you’ll have a multispecialty physician team of dermatologists, surgical, medical and radiation oncologists, and other specialists who work together to deliver your treatment with the most beneficial timing and sequence.
Your treatment may include one or more of the following approaches:
- Surgery to remove the cancer from your body in an operation. This may include removing one or more lymph nodes and other tissues.
- Field treatments. Some early melanomas can be treated with topical medications that trigger inflammation in the skin and fight the cancer.
- Medical therapy, which uses drugs to attack the cancer cells. Your medical therapy may include targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and/or chemotherapy drugs.
- Radiation therapy to direct high energy radiation at the cancer sites to kill cancer cells.
- TIL therapy such as Amtagvi™ (lifileucel), to harness and multiply your own immune cells known as T cells to fight melanoma that has metastasized.
- Clinical trials to access the very latest emerging options, many of which are unavailable from other providers.
- Plastic & reconstructive surgery to repair and restore surgical areas, improving appearance and function.
New breakthrough for patients with metastatic melanoma
Amtagvi™ (lifileucel) is a breakthrough new cellular therapy called tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, or TIL therapy, and uses your own powerful immune cells as a “living drug” to fight your cancer. The very first TIL therapy to gain FDA approval, Amtagvi is for patients with metastatic melanoma and it’s available at Roswell Park.
Learn more about TIL therapy Read about TIL therapy for metastatic melanoma