Treatment of Stage III Melanoma That Can Be Removed By Surgery

Treatment of stage III melanoma that can be removed by surgery may include:

• surgery to remove the tumor and some of the normal tissue around it, with or without skin grafting to cover the wound caused by surgery. Sometimes lymph node mapping and sentinel lymph node biopsy are done to check for cancer in the lymph nodes at the same time as the surgery to remove the tumor. If cancer is found in the sentinel lymph node, more lymph nodes may be removed.
• surgery followed by immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (, , or ) if there is a high risk that the cancer will come back
• surgery followed by targeted therapy with signal transduction inhibitors ( and ) if there is a high risk that the cancer will come back

Learn more about these treatments in the Treatment Option Overview.

Use our clinical trial search to find NCI-supported cancer clinical trials that are accepting patients. You can search for trials based on the type of cancer, the age of the patient, and where the trials are being done. General information about clinical trials is also available.