About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffTreatments for Merkel cell carcinoma can include:
-
Surgery. During surgery, your doctor removes the tumor along with a border of normal skin surrounding the tumor. If there's evidence that the cancer has spread to lymph nodes in the area of the skin tumor, those lymph nodes are removed (lymph node dissection).
The surgeon most often uses a scalpel to cut away the cancer. In some cases, your doctor may use a procedure called Mohs micrographic surgery. After removing the visible tumor, your doctor creates very thin "slices" of the tumor tissue and examines each slice under a microscope. The surgical process is repeated until cancer cells are no longer visible in the tissue slice. This type of surgery takes out less normal tissue — thereby reducing scarring — but ensures a tumor-free border of skin. Mohs surgery is often used to remove skin cancer from the face.
-
Radiation therapy. Radiation therapy involves directing high-energy beams, such as X-rays, at cancer cells. During radiation treatment, you're positioned on a table and a large machine moves around you, directing the beams to precise points on your body.
Radiation therapy is sometimes used after surgery to destroy any cancer cells that remain after the tumor is removed. Due to the rarity of Merkel cell carcinoma, it's not clear exactly who should receive radiation after complete surgical removal of the tumor. Discuss with your doctor the pros and cons of receiving radiation therapy after removal of your cancer.
Radiation also may be used to shrink Merkel cell carcinoma before it's removed or as the sole treatment in people who choose not to undergo surgery. Radiation can also be used to treat areas where the cancer has spread.
-
Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill the cancer cells. Chemotherapy drugs can be administered through a vein in your arm or taken as a pill or both.
Your doctor may recommend chemotherapy if your Merkel cell carcinoma has spread to your lymph nodes or other organs in your body, or if it has returned despite treatment. However, whether chemotherapy improves the survival rate in people with Merkel cell carcinoma is unclear. Talk with your doctor about the benefits and risks of using chemotherapy in your case.
- Wood GS, et al. Nonmelanoma skin cancers: Basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas. In: Abeloff MD, et al. Abeloff's Clinical Oncology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2007:1262.
- Merkel cell carcinoma. Fort Washington, Pa.: National Comprehensive Cancer Network. http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/mcc.pdf. Accessed Aug. 23, 2010.
- Merkel cell carcinoma treatment (PDQ). National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/merkelcell/patient/allpages. Accessed Aug. 23, 2010.
- Skin cancer prevention tips. SkinCancerNet. http://www.skincarephysicians.com/skincancernet/prevention.html. Accessed Aug. 23, 2010.
Find Mayo Clinic on