Questions about metastasizing melanoma

I’m pretty sure it can also move through the blood system (vascular invasion). Depending how deep the lesion was (mine was 7mm and characterized with neuro/ vascular invasion). Hope this helps.

The answer is yes, it can.   My wife had a primary on her left calf.   At the time of removal, her sentinal lymph nodes were biopsied and clear.   Her PET scan was clear.   She appeared to be cancer free.   6 months later she had two mets in her brain.   It is now a year later and she has never had a lymph node light up on a scan.

My husband had a 10.5 mm lesion  on his head with negative SLN clear and all margins were clear at the time.  9 months later he had a second lesion cut and again with clear margins.  He later became stage IV and went on a clinical trial and has been NED for 6 years now.  He never had brain mets during this time.  If interested you can read his profile.

Best of luck to you.

Judy the loving wife of Gene Stage IV (clinical trial of Ipi ((Yervoy)) 10 mg/kg and GMCSF daily self injections and NED since July of 2012)

Hi Savannah,

Yes it can spread by lymphatic system or blood. Spread at nearby lymph nodes is most common but mel can hide out and appear at distant sites months or years after original diagnosis. That is why there is more frequent follow up first couple years.

With longer time from diagnosis risk decreases but is still higher than for people who never had melanoma. Most stage 1 and 2 pts do not progress. Young people such as yourself tend to have better outcomes because your immune system is stronger, elderly people have poorer survival statistics.

Yup, this is sucky to have uncertainty hanging over our heads but that’s how it is. Tricky bit is to accept this possibility but not become hyper focused on it, to enjoy our lives and not let ourselves be made unhappy or afraid about what might never happen. You can study a lot of statistics, but they won’t reflect new treatments effect on survival, and you are YOU  and NOT a statistic. Life is never certain. We just got a big reminder of that. 

Most cancer centers offer counseling if needed to help adjust to this new normal. Be thankful that you do not need to deal with treatments now, and that if you need them down the line there are great people here to comfort and advise and new treatments becoming available all the time. Pray for those on this board who are struggling with active treatments, side effects and worse. 

Blessings, 

joyce 

Lymph system, blood stream, and the even more creepy "angiotropism" – meaning that they could travel along the outside of blood vessels, without entering into the bloodstream.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/cancer-spreading:-caught-in-the-act