Surgery for melanoma

Surgery is the main treatment for early-stage melanoma and it is often cured by surgery alone. 

Surgery for early-stage melanoma may remove the mole (excision surgery) or the mole and an area around it (wide local excision surgery). 

With melanoma that has spread to other parts of your body (locally advanced/metastatic), you may have a combination of treatments as surgery alone might not remove all of the cancer cells. For example, you may have surgery and targeted therapies. The aim is to control the spread of the cancer rather than to cure it. 

Wide local excision is surgery to remove the melanoma and an area of normal looking skin around it and underneath it. This is done to reduce the risk of the melanoma coming back in the same area. 

The area of healthy tissue removed can vary. For example, it may be 1-4 cm of tissue, depending on the size of the melanoma. 

This surgery is normally done under local anaesthetic in the day surgery unit. Most melanomas are cured by surgery.

Sometimes a skin flap is used. This is where the surgeon takes a thick layer of skin – with its own blood supply – from an area near the melanoma site and places it over the site to repair the wound.

If melanoma cells are found in your lymph nodes, your doctor may decide to remove some of the nodes. This helps to prevent cancer spreading to other parts of your body. The lymph nodes are removed in hospital under a general anaesthetic. 

You may feel sore for the first few days after the operation but most people recover quickly.

In a very small number of cases, swelling may occur at the site of the removed lymph nodes. It may occur some time after the surgery. This is called lymphoedema. Contact your doctor or specialist nurse if you notice swelling or a feeling of heaviness, tightness, soreness or stiffness in the affected area.

 Read more about lymphoedema.