Melanoma Treatment - Regional Perfusion

Regional Perfusion (Isolated Limb Perfusion)

About half of all melanomas occur in the extremities, and about 10% of patients with those lesions develop a recurrence as in-transit disease. Isolated limb perfusion (ILP) was developed for locoregional delivery of chemotherapeutic agents and potential limb salvage. 

Regional perfusion is a procedure used to treat one limb of the body that has multiple areas of metastasis from melanoma that cannot be removed by surgery alone. In this procedure, the blood supply to that limb is temporarily isolated, and a chemotherapy agent is heated and infused into that limb. Melphalan has become the gold standard for ILP.