Melanoma Treatment Offers Less Painful, More Effective Treatment

This therapy targets melanoma confined to an arm or leg. The majority of patients treated with isolated limb infusion have shown a significant response to the therapy, and in most cases all the disease on the affected extremity is completely gone within three months.

“It’s the preferred method when standard surgical treatment is not enough,” surgical oncologist Paul Mosca, M.D says. By using a tourniquet and a catheter inserted percutaneously, Mosca delivers large doses of chemotherapy to a patient’s limb without affecting the rest of the body.

Because the patient’s limb is isolated during the procedure, the chemotherapy drug goes only to where it’s needed most. “It allows us to deliver high doses of chemotherapy directly to the limb,” Mosca says.