The Melanoma Surgery Program offers highly specialized, expert and compassionate surgical care for melanoma and other serious skin cancers. Surgery for advanced melanoma is cancer surgery and therefore highly complex and challenging.
Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer. It can invade or involve deeper layers of the skin and has the greatest potential to spread to other tissues in the body. The UCSF Melanoma Center provides consultations and treatment for all stages of melanoma, from early lesions to late-stage disease. Newly diagnosed patients and those who have suffered a recurrence of melanoma receive a comprehensive evaluation, including a review of medical history, physical exam, pathology assessment of a biopsy specimen, psychosocial interview and recommendations for an individualized plan of treatment and follow-up.
A multidisciplinary team including surgeons, medical oncologists, dermatologists, dermatopathologists, radiologists, geneticists, and psychotherapists provide state-of-the-art care and personalized treatment plans for each patient.
Complex cases are reviewed the the UCSF Melanoma Tumor Board, led by Adil Doud, M.D., a special multidisciplinary weekly conference that provides a consultative service for diagnostic evaluation and management of advanced melanoma.
Comprised of physicians from such fields as dermatology, surgical oncology, medical oncology, otolaryngology, and dermatopathology, as well as psychologists and biostatisticians, the Melanoma Tumor Board offers a full array of services for diagnostic work-up and treatment with such established and experimental modalities as surgery, biochemotherapy, vaccine therapy, and cytokine therapy. Referring specialists are also invited to attend and bring their complex patient cases for review.