One of the most important things after being diagnosed with melanoma is learning its stage (extent of the melanoma at the initial/primary site and extent, if any, that melanoma has spread elsewhere in your body). Knowing the stage of melanoma helps to determine your initial prognosis and helps your clinical team identify the best treatment plan for you.
Melanoma staging is based on the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system that uses three key pieces of information for assigning Tumor-Node-Metastasis (TNM) classifications. In 2016, the AJCC expanded its staging guidelines to incorporate additional evidence-based prognostic factors. The goal is to create a uniform staging system with the assumption that melanomas of the same stage will have similar characteristics, treatment options, and outcomes.
If you've been recently diagnosed with melanoma, you are not alone. The Melanoma > Exchange is a free online melanoma treatment and research-focused discussion group and support community.
It is important to note that while staging is used to help understand how far the melanoma has advanced through the body, other measures such as the Breslow Depth relate to the specific melanoma biopsied, and the depth or thickness of that melanoma. Learn more about the Breslow Depth.
Melanoma survival rates provide the proportion of people with a particular stage of melanoma who are alive after a predetermined amount of time, normally 5 or 10 years, after diagnosis. Although these numbers can be helpful to you when making treatment and other decisions, they do not dictate how long you will live. They are not “your” numbers.
Most of the time, you will see these numbers written as 5-year survival rates. So, a 98% 5-year survival rate can be understood as predicting that 98 out of 100 people will be alive 5 years after diagnosis.
Keep in mind that these numbers are accurate for a group of people, but they don’t provide a complete picture for any one individual. Also, the data required to determine these rates are complicated, and the people the data are based on were treated 5 to 10 years ago when treatments were different from what is available today.
Melanoma treatments have improved significantly with the addition of immunotherapy and targeted therapy. These survival rates are only beginning to reflect these advancements.
