Some go so far as to believe that their future is bleak. Fortunately, it is not necessarily true. When it comes to early stage disease, the future could hardly be brighter. Practically every person with a thin, localized melanoma is cured by appropriate surgery. Therefore, you can see that the sooner the cancer is caught and treated, the better the results.
Early detection remains the best weapon in fighting melanoma.
Even for those with more advanced disease, there is good news, as the cure rate keeps rising. The first step in treatment is the removal of the melanoma, and the standard method of doing this is by surgical excision or cutting it out. Surgery has made great advances in the 1990s, and much less tissue is removed than was customary even a few years ago. Patients do just as well after the lesser surgery, which is easier to tolerate and produces a smaller scar. The surgical excision is also called resection, and the borders of the entire area excised are known as the margins.