First of all let me begin by saying I know that this cannot be easy for you. It is sure to be generating a lot of anxiety, but in my experience this is often helped by getting as much information as one can about their condition. Yes Melanoma is a serious diagnosis but lot of people with Melanoma get cured and lead completely normal lives. The first step is to get your melanoma staged. This is what the PET scan is for. This will indicate whether the melanoma has spread or not. Along with this there are numerous other factors that go into staging a melanoma such as melanoma depth, lymph node involvement and presence or absence of ulceration. Once these are all known a stage is assigned to the melanoma. There are four stages in all.

The prognosis of a melanoma is expressed in terms of 5 year survival rate with the assumption that patients who survive 5 years after treatment are cured of the condition. For stage 1 melanoma the 5 year survival rate is 95-100% falling gradually to less than 10% for stage 4 melanoma. The staging will be done after the surgery and will be told to you by your treating surgeon. Further management and prognosis will depend on this staging. Here is a staging tool that you can use yourself:

http://www.melanomacenter.org/melanomastaging/stagestart.cfm

Here are the investigations required for staging a melanoma. You can discuss these with your doctor to make sure everything is done:

http://www.melanomacenter.org/staging/index.html

Hope this information is useful, please feel free to ask if you have any queries.

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