Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center experts offer comprehensive melanoma care at the Multidisciplinary Skin Oncology Clinic, including advanced treatments and new options available only through clinical studies.
A diagnosis of cancer can feel overwhelming. We have an experienced, compassionate team ready to help.
We have dermatologists, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists who specialize in melanoma. As a member institution of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Fred Hutch is home to physicians who help define the national standards for melanoma care.
Fred Hutch patients have access to advanced therapies being explored in clinical studies for melanoma conducted here and at UW Medicine.
We view treatment as a collaborative effort. Your Fred Hutch physicians will explain all your options and recommend a treatment plan based on the type, location, size and stage of your cancer and your overall health.
Your personal team includes more than your melanoma physicians. Additional experts who specialize in treating people with cancer will be involved if you need them — experts like a palliative care professional, social worker, physical therapist, registered dietitian or integrative medicine provider.
Learn more about our Supportive Care Services
During and after treatment, your team continues to provide follow-up care on a schedule tailored to you. The Fred Hutch Survivorship Clinic is also here to help you live your healthiest life as a melanoma survivor.
Learn more about the Survivorship Clinic
Surgery is usually the main treatment for melanoma. Often this means your primary care physician or dermatologist removes suspicious tissue, and has it checked for cancer (biopsied), before you ever see a specialist at Fred Hutch. If your tumor is removed very early, you may not need any other treatment.
Melanoma-Specialized Surgeons
Our skin cancer surgeon team includes experts in surgical oncology, reconstruction and head and neck surgery. This team specializes in the treatment of melanoma, and you can feel confident knowing that the surgeon who cares for you is best-suited for your specific diagnosis.
Wide Excision
If your melanoma is localized, meaning it is just on your skin, you may need only a simple excision (removing it by cutting it out).
Fred Hutch’s melanoma surgeons and reconstructive surgeons work together to treat tumors in sensitive locations, like the face or hand. The surgeon who removes the cancer may be able to close the area by bringing the edges of the skin together around the wound. If the area is too large or the cancer went too deep for this approach, our reconstructive surgeons offer more options. One is closing the wound with neighboring skin that is turned into place (local tissue rearrangement). Others involve using skin from another part of your body (skin grafting) or using skin plus other tissue from another body area (free-flap reconstruction). Learn more about reconstructive surgery.
Sentinel Lymph Node Mapping and Biopsy
Thicker melanomas tend to spread to nearby lymph nodes, which need to be checked for cancer and possibly removed.
A tracer substance and a dye are injected near your tumor to find the lymph node or nodes where your cancer would spread first (sentinel nodes). Your surgeon removes only the nodes where the substance appears, and a pathologist checks the nodes for cancer cells.
Fred Hutch's David R. Byrd, MD, brought this technique, sentinel lymph node mapping and biopsy, to the Northwest in the 1990s.
Preventing and Treating Lymphedema
Lymphedema is not common, but it is a possible complication. So after any lymph node surgery, we refer our patients to physical therapists (PTs) with expertise in preventing, detecting and managing lymphedema.
We have several resources for lymphedema treatment, including PTs who provide complete decongestive therapy and specialized reconstructive surgeons who offer advanced surgical treatments, such as lymph vessel reconnection surgery and lymph-node transfer.
David Byrd, MD, discusses surgery for melanoma.
David Byrd, MD, discusses how we treat melanoma on different parts of the body.
David Byrd, MD, discusses the sentinel node biopsy in assessing and treating melanoma.
David Byrd, MD, discusses the role of pathology in the treatment of melanoma.
Immunotherapies harness your body’s immune system to fight your cancer. One type is called an immune checkpoint inhibitor. These medicines block proteins that normally keep your immune cells in check so that they do not become overactive.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors used for melanoma include:
Other types of immunotherapy for melanoma include:
Learn more about Immunotherapy
Targeted therapies work selectively against cancer cells, rather than affecting all fast-growing cells, like standard chemotherapy does. Many of them target a gene or protein responsible for allowing cancer to grow.
Target therapies for melanoma include:
Your Fred Hutch team will talk with you about the specific immunotherapies or targeted therapies we recommend for you, how you’ll receive them, your treatment schedule and what to expect. We’ll also explain how to take the best possible care of yourself during treatment and after, and we’ll connect you with medical and support resources throughout Fred Hutch.
Radiation therapy is often given to people with melanoma:
Radiation therapy is painless and noninvasive (similar to getting a CT scan), and each treatment lasts only minutes. Different types of radiation therapy are used for different situations. A few examples are described below.
Radiosurgery
Radiosurgery is an advanced form of highly focused, high-dose radiation therapy that can kill tumors in fewer treatments than conventional radiation treatment — typically one to five session rather than daily sessions for several weeks. It has a greater than 95 percent chance of killing small tumors.
There are many names for this type of treatment, including:
Gamma Knife is specifically designed for treating tumors in the brain. It is not a knife or scalpel in the usual sense of the word (neither is CyberKnife), and it doesn’t require opening the skull. Instead, it uses precisely focused beams of radiation. Patients are usually treated in one session.
Intensity-Modulated Image-Guided Radiotherapy (IMRT/IGRT)
In this form of radiation treatment, doctors use computed tomography (CT) to scan your tumor and create beams of radiation that closely conform to the tumor's shape. The beams vary in shape and intensity to deliver a higher dose of radiation to the tumor and lower doses to nearby healthy tissue.
IMRT/IGRT is generally used after surgery if there’s a high risk the cancer might recur, such as if multiple lymph nodes in the neck are involved.
Neutron Therapy
Neutron therapy is a strong form of radiotherapy used for advanced melanomas that cannot be removed by surgery. It also helps with pain and other symptoms when melanoma is widespread.
Ramesh Rengan, MD, PhD, and Andrew Stacey, MD, and their patient, Bob Martin, talk about the Ocular Melanoma Program at UW Medicine and Fred Hutch - Proton Therapy, a comprehensive approach to treating ocular cancers.
Treatment Options for Ocular Cancers
The recommended treatment for eye tumors is based on the location and the size of the tumor. There are four treatment approaches for ocular melanoma.
Laser
If the tumor is small, laser treatment is sometimes an option.
Surgical Enucleation (Removal of the Eye)
This is usually required if the tumor is very large. Outcomes are excellent for tumor control, but the side effect is the loss of the eye. For additional details, contact an ocular oncologist.
Brachytherapy
A large comparative study of patients with medium-size tumors found that brachytherapy was a good equivalent option to enucleation. It is now routinely used to treat all but the largest tumors and preservation of the eye is a priority.
Proton Therapy
Proton therapy is comparative in outcomes to brachytherapy and enucleation. Proton therapy is very effective in achieving local control of the melanoma, and does not worsen survival rates for the patient. It can be used to treat tumors too large for brachytherapy and is well suited to treating tumors next to the optic nerve. Ocular melanoma is one of the earliest uses of proton therapy and has been used to treat ocular cancers in the United States since 1994.
Protons can be controlled with greater precision than X-rays. This means that more energy goes into destroying the tumor and less radiation is delivered to surrounding healthy tissue. For this reason, proton therapy is particularly good for treating tumors near healthy organs, including melanoma of the eye.
Please call 1.844.538.3485 if you are ready to request an appointment. Please be advised that we will need your medical records to determine if you are a candidate for proton therapy.
Learn more about Proton Therapy for Ocular Melanoma