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Treatment Option Overview for Melanoma
Source: Melanoma Treatment (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version, National Cancer Institute.
Source updated: May 2, 2025 · Captured 2026-09-09.
Selected source text with whitespace normalised. This Triangle page is not an NCI PDQ summary.
| Stage (TNM Staging Criteria) | Treatment Optionsa |
|---|---|
| aClinical trials are an important option for patients with all stages of melanoma because advances in understanding the aberrant molecular and biological pathways have led to rapid drug development. Standard treatment options are available in many clinical trials. Information about ongoing clinical trials is available from the NCI website. | |
| Stage 0 melanoma | Excision |
| Stage IA melanoma | Excision +/− sentinel lymph node biopsy |
| Stage IB melanoma | Excision with lymph node management |
| Stage II melanoma | Excision with lymph node management |
| Adjuvant therapy | |
| Resectable Stage III melanoma | Excision +/− lymph node management |
| Neoadjuvant therapy | |
| Adjuvant therapy | |
| Combination immunotherapies, including vaccines (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Adjuvant therapies that target a known pathogenic variant, e.g., KIT (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Intralesional therapies (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Unresectable Stage III, Stage IV, and Recurrent melanoma | Immunotherapy |
| Signal transduction inhibitors | |
| Intralesional therapy | |
| Adjunctive local/regional therapy including surgical resection | |
| Palliative therapy | |
| Targeted therapy with single agents or combination therapy (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Combinations of immunotherapy and targeted therapy (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Intralesional injections (e.g., oncolytic viruses) (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Complete surgical resection of all known disease versus best medical therapy (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Isolated limb perfusion for unresectable extremity melanoma (under clinical evaluation) | |
| Systemic therapy for unresectable disease (under clinical evaluation) | |
Source links and citations
- Stage (TNM Staging Criteria)
- NCI website
- Excision
- Excision
- sentinel lymph node biopsy
- Excision
- lymph node management
- Excision
- lymph node management
- Adjuvant therapy
- Excision
- lymph node management
- Neoadjuvant therapy
- Adjuvant therapy
- Immunotherapy
- Signal transduction inhibitors
- Intralesional therapy
- Palliative therapy
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Preserved source evidence · Not medical advice