Another approach to fighting melanoma has been the use of viruses. The basic principal is that some viruses kill melanoma cells. Hence, if you expose and infect the patient with this kind of virus, it will help them destroy the melanoma tumors.
Another category if therapy for fighting melanoma is vaccines. Melanoma vaccines work in a similar manner as any vaccine works in your body: dead cells (in this case, dead cancer cells) are injected into your body. Since these cells are dead, they can't be harmful to you. However, your body "sees" the dead cells, recognizes them as being foreign, and remembers them for the future. Then, when your body encounters live cancers, it recognizes them as bad, and kills them.
Researchers have been experimenting with vaccines in the fight against melanoma for many years with results that vary. In some cases they have tried a generic vaccine (i.e. they use the same vaccine for any melanoma patient). In other cases, they use a specific vaccine (i.e. they take the patient's own tumor cells, create a vaccine from them, and inject it back into the patient's body).
Chemotherapy involves the use of drugs that kill rapidly dividing cells in your body. Cancer cells are normal cells which have mutated, and one of their characteristics is that once mutated, they divide faster than normal cells. Hence, chemotherapies can be effective at killing them.
However, chemotherapies generally are not targeted specifically at cancer cells—they will kill other rapidly dividing cells in your body as well. These include hair (which is why many cancer patients temporarily lose their hair), bones (which is why doctors need to be more careful with chemotherapy given to children), and more. There are a number of chemotherapies that are used to treat melanoma. In some cases they are used on their own, and in other cases they are combined together, or combined with other therapies (such as biotherapies). The following are examples of chemotherapies used in fighting melanoma:
Biotherapies are based on the idea that the body's own immune system is capable of killing cancer cells, a process known as cell aptosis. In fact, many have theorized that everyone has millions of cancer cells in their bodies every day, as cancer cells are normal cells that have changed or mutated. Normally, a person's immune system is able to kill these mutated cells on its own such that these cells never get a chance to replicate and grown into a tumor, or spread. However, in some people, their body's immune system is not killing the cancer cells and they do begin to form tumors, and sometimes spread.
Biotherapies work to stimulate the body's own immune system so that it can be more effective at killing cancer cells. Different biotherapy treatments approach this process in various ways. For example, some stimulate your body to produce more NK (natural killer) cells. Others, for example, stimulate your body to produce more T-cells. Both NK and T-cells are used by your body to target and kill melanoma. The following are examples of biotherapies used in fighting melanoma: