HY 03/07: Advanced Treatment for Melanoma

A new procedure gives hope to local woman with stubborn skin cancer

Sue McElrea, 50, of Mertztown was first treated for a melanoma on her leg in 2001. Surgery to remove the deadly form of skin cancer was successful, but just months later, she discovered a second melanoma near the site of the first. After it was removed, a third cancer appeared. This time she required radiation therapy.

But these treatments were taking a toll. McElrea had increasing trouble with poor healing, leg swelling and infection. She needed wound care, skin grafts, and finally a muscle-and-skin graft.

Then, in 2006, a fourth melanoma appeared. “I was worried about another infection and what the radiation would do to my skin grafts,” says McElrea, a nurse at the Lutheran Home at Topton. “I knew I didn’t have many options left.”

Surgical oncologist Paul Mosca, M.D., of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network offered McElrea a new option—an advanced treatment called isolated limb infusion. It’s used for recurrent melanoma that is confined to an arm or leg. While blood flow to the affected limb is temporarily stopped with a tourniquet, the blood is pumped out, warmed and injected back into the limb with high doses of chemotherapy drugs (which work better when heated). “Because the limb is isolated from the rest of the body, the chemotherapy drugs go only where they are needed and not throughout the body,” Mosca says. “This way, we can give high doses that would not be possible with regular treatments. Isolated limb infusion is the preferred method when melanoma is too extensive or doesn’t respond to standard surgical treatment.”

It’s important to have new treatment options for melanoma, which has doubled in frequency in the United States in the past 30 years. Isolated limb infusion also can be effective in treating another form of skin cancer, soft tissue sarcoma. If necessary, the treatment can be repeated, and for some people, it can mean the difference between eliminating the tumor and having the limb amputated.

The treatment worked for Sue McElrea. Her skin graft is in good shape, and she had no complications. “This treatment put an end to my melanoma once and for all,” she says. “I feel better than I have in a long time.”

Want to Know More about preventing and detecting melanoma and other skin cancers? Call 610-402-CARE or click on the link in the column on the right side of this page.