My husband just diagnosed with melanoma

I am sorry to hear about your husband's diagnosis.

From your description, I assume that he will be having a sentinel node biopsy. I am copy/pasting a description of this procedure below. First let me say that I assume after they do the sentinel node tracking your husband will have a wide excision where his primary tumor was removed to make sure there isn't any residual melanoma left where the primary was removed. When I say primary I meant the mole which has already been removed.

When I had the sentinel node biopsy I went to the hospital as an out patient. First they did the tracking of the sentinel node (described below); I was under general anesthetic for the sentinel node removal and wide excision so I can't describe the surgical part. My mole was on my hip and my sentinel node was in my groin area. I was able to go home that evening and within a week was fairly well recovered. I got the results of my sentinel node biopsy at my one week check up.

Since my sentinel node was positive I ended up having a complete node dissection later. Not everyone elects to do that even with a positive node and I recommend that you take this one step at a time. The complete node dissection does require a short hospital stay (one night for me but sometimes that is 2 or more). However, hopefully your husband won't have a positive sentinel node and that won't be an issue.

Since your husband's doctor mention injections for a year, I assume he/she was talking about interferon. Interferon is the only FDA approved adjuvant treatment for melanoma. However, there are many clinical trials for melanoma which some people choose to do instead.

I was offered interferon but elected not to do it. That is an individual choice and I wouldn't presume to advise you about that but I would advise that you and your husband do a google search on interferon and melanoma before making that decision. Some oncologists recommend it strongly, others are neutral and others have reservations in light of new studies which are coming out.

The other thing you mentioned was PET scans. PET scans work by the patient being injected with radioactive glucose which travels to metabolically active areas. Since cancer cells are metabolically active, it works by taking pictures to see where the dye travels (FDG uptake). PET scans can look at the whole body to make sure that melanoma hasn't metastasized anywhere beyond the primary. I don't mind that scan at all. It's shaped like a doughnut so you aren't enclosed like with an MRI (it's open at each end although you do you into a tunnel).

Sometimes, there are false positives though so even if the PET lights up, a biopsy or other scans are needed to confirm cancer. Hopefully if your husband has a PET scan he won't have any areas that are suspicious and this will be moot.

Information I copied for you about the sentinel node biopsy is below -

"The National Cancer Institute (NCI) describes sentinel lymph node mapping as: “The use of dyes and radioactive substances to identify the first lymph node to which cancer is likely to spread from the primary tumor. ” Cancer cells may appear first in the sentinel node before spreading to other lymph nodes and other places in the body.

Removing the sentinel lymph node serves two main purposes:

The pathologist studies the sentinel node for any evidence of cancerous cells. This allows the doctors to properly stage the cancer and recommend additional treatment options;
If the sentinel node is negative, or cancer-free, usually no additional lymph nodes need be removed."

Best of luck to your husband and you. Try to take this one step at a time if you can. I hope I haven't confused you even more than you already were.

Well the good news is they seem to be acting very quickly in your husbands case and time counts with this disease. I'm caring for my mother right now after she had a melanoma and lymph nodes removed in sept. She did have follow up treatment with interferon and we are still looking for information on the side effects. My best advice is keep strong and keep asking questions. Talking to others who have gone through this is the best way of navigating through the "doc talk". So often they overload you with medical info and you need to hear laymans terms and "what does this mean for my loved one". So keep talking to people I've found discussion groups to be an invaluable practical resource. Take care.