What is the purpose and goals of a complete lymph node dissection for melanoma?

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VernonSondakMD (Physician - Surgery - Surgical Oncology (Verified) ) - 07 / 12 / 2012

A complete lymph node dissection, on the other hand, is treatment first and foremost, although with a little bit of ‘staging’ thrown in there too. The staging part comes from the fact that all of the lymph nodes (often 10 or more depending on which nodes are being dissected) are analyzed by the pathologist, and we know that the more nodes that are found to have melanoma the worse the long-term prognosis is. But the primary goal of the complete node dissection is to get rid of all the nodes in the region once at least one node in that region has shown itself as having melanoma in it. Getting rid of those additional nodes before they become obviously abnormal markedly lowers the chance of the nodal disease growing out of control right in that region, and for some people (overall about half) cures them.
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