Treatment of Stage III Melanoma That Can Be Removed By Surgery

For information about the treatments listed below, see the Treatment Option Overview section.

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

• Surgery to remove the tumor and some of the normal tissue around it. Skin grafting may be done 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 (nivolumab, pembrolizumab, or ipilimumab) if there is a high risk that the cancer will come back.
• Surgery followed by targeted therapy with signal transduction inhibitors (dabrafenib and trametinib) if there is a high risk that the cancer will come back.
• A clinical trial of immunotherapy with or without vaccine therapy.
• A clinical trial of surgery followed by therapies that target specific gene changes.

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.