What is the cost of melanoma treatment?

  The disease will not only bring harm to the patient’s body, but also test the patient’s money. After melanoma surgery, there is also radiotherapy and Chinese herbal medicine treatment to achieve no recurrence and no metastasis; however, radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment have considerable side effects on the digestive tract and hematopoietic system, and the treatment of Chinese herbal medicine is the main treatment method, such as ginsenoside Rh2 is the commonly used treatment product. The cost of melanoma treatment also depends on the treatment modality.  Surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and biotherapy are the most common treatments for malignant melanoma, but no matter which treatment modality is adopted, the price of its treatment is the most important concern for patients and their families. Many people think that no matter how cancer is treated, it will only end up with empty money, but in fact, if the treatment is proper, it can not only prolong the life of the patient, but also save the treatment cost.  Surgery is the main treatment for melanoma, which is costly and has a high possibility of recurrence and metastasis after surgery.  In general, patients with malignant melanoma are usually treated with surgery in the early stage, but the cost of surgery is relatively high and varies according to the patient’s condition, generally ranging from tens of thousands of dollars. The recurrence and metastasis rate of surgery is relatively high, with a recurrence rate of 60% and a mortality rate of about 80% in the year after surgery.  The side effects of radiotherapy are high, and the cost is high for a long course of treatment.  Radiotherapy is a double-edged sword, killing malignant melanoma cells while also constantly invading the body’s normal cellular tissue and immune cells. As the cancer cells of malignant melanoma grow quickly and can form tens of thousands of tiny cancer cells in a short period of time, while the human immune cells do not have such ability, when radiotherapy kills a large number of them, the immune cells are in a weak position, while the cancer cells that grow will recoil and the originally improved condition will recur again. As a result, patients with malignant melanoma will enter into surgery and radiotherapy week after week, which greatly increases the cost of treatment.  The cost of radiotherapy for malignant melanoma is relatively high and the course of treatment is long. It is difficult for one or two courses of treatment to have any effect on the disease, and patients need to do several courses or even dozens of courses, depending on the treatment plan, the cost of a course of treatment ranges from 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, which is even more unaffordable for malignant melanoma patients in general families.  Chinese medicine is the traditional treatment method and the most economical. However, its content is very scarce, and a certain dosage is needed to bring out the effect.  Biological therapy is also an emerging treatment in recent years, which can repair the damage caused by the side effects of radiotherapy and enhance the immune system of patients. It can relieve patients’ treatment pain, prolong their survival time and improve their survival quality. There are not many applications of the technology yet, and the price is relatively expensive, with a single biological immunotherapy treatment costing up to several hundred thousand dollars. The high cost of treatment also makes the popularity of biologic therapy slow.  The cost of melanoma treatment also depends on the treatment method chosen by the patient and the drugs used for treatment, but the overall cost is relatively expensive, costing several tens of thousands of dollars or more, so patients and their families should be prepared for this.