Treatment Options for Skin Cancer

There are several things to take into consideration when discussing treatment options for a patient with skin cancer: the type of skin cancer, the stage and location of it, and the individual’s age and overall health. For instance, people with small basal cell carcinomas may only require simple treatment. However, unlike basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas have a greater tendency to spread, and eventually may require more treatment. The three kinds of treatment used for most skin cancers include: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

Surgery is the most common treatment to skin cancer. One of the several surgical methods is simple excision that involves cutting out the tumor with a margin of surrounding normal skin to ensure it is completely removed. Another surgical method that freezes and kills the cancer cells is known as cryosurgery. This method makes use of liquid nitrogen which has a temperature of 196 degrees below zero centigrade. The extreme cold immediately kills the tumor, which eventually falls off like a scab after the area thaws. Cryosurgery is typically used for small or superficial skin cancers. For cancers that have grown beyond the outer layer of the skin, laser surgery would be used. Laser surgery uses the highly focused beam of light from a laser to destroy cancer cells.

Diagram: Cryosurgery. (Cure Genital Warts, 2010)

Chemotherapy is referred to as treatment with anti-cancer drugs given to destroy or control cancer cells. The anti-cancer drugs in cream or lotion form are often applied to the skin of the patient with skin cancer. Such topical chemotherapy is for superficial tumors which have not advanced beyond the top layer of the skin. Although topical chemotherapy usually does not produce nausea or other body-wide side effects, it does cause redness and inflammation in affected area of the skin. Another form of chemotherapy, known as systemic or body-wide chemotherapy, may be given in a pill, injected into a muscle, or intravenous form through a needle in a vein. Side effects are common in this treatment, but they can generally be controlled. This treatment is normally used only for metastatic cancer.

Diagram: A patient doing radiotherapy. (National Nursing Review, 2009)

Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, uses a special kind of energy carried by invisible rays or particles to kill cancer cells or inhibit their growth. This therapy is usually used for cancers that occur in areas difficult to treat with surgery. These include cancers on the ears, eyelids, and the tip of the nose.