Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 4/30/2009

Question
A few years ago my father had melanoma and completed treatment and was in remission.  He continued with follow ups and last year all his scans came back clean and then a few months ago he went for yearly exam and the found that the melanoma had spread to his brain (7 areas), lungs, intestine, and spine (neck).  He completed radiation treatment on the spine but the doctors didn't want to know the results yet because my dad qualified to be in a specific treatment trial.  I forgot to mention that he also has diabetes.  He is doing infusion treatment along with medications but I am not sure the exact medication.  His lungs and intestines have shown some improvement but his brain had not shown any improvement, however it had not gotten any worse either.  I guess my question would be what is the prognosis for this kind of cancer and how effective is infusion treatment on it.  I do know that he just had some more tests done yesterday and they are waiting for the results and depending on the outcome he may be taken off the program he is in and doing radiation on his brain.  Thank you for your time.
Christine

Answer
Since I do not know what kind of infusion therapy he is receiving I can not offer any prognosis with regards to that. Since that probably is a clinical trial the experience of that medication is probably very limited or nonexistent yet. So I can not give you any evaluation of that. In previous experience a stage 4 malignant melanoma - as here - has a VERY bad prognosis and with brain metastases - as here - survival time can usually be measured in months or even weeks. Malignant melanomas have so far usually been not very sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. I'm sorry I have nothing better to tell you!