• Incidence of regional and systemic metastases [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Survival time [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Failure time [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Toxicity [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
• Fatigue as assessed by the Brief Fatigue Inventory [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

• Incidence of regional and systemic metastases
• Survival time
• Failure time
• Toxicity
• Fatigue as assessed by the Brief Fatigue Inventory

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Giving radiation therapy after surgery may kill any tumor cells remaining after surgery.

PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well adjuvant radiation therapy works in treating patients who have undergone surgery for desmoplastic melanoma.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the recurrence rates of patients with desmoplastic melanoma treated with adjuvant radiotherapy after surgical resection.
• Determine the disease-free and overall survival of patients treated with this regimen.
• Determine the immediate and long-term morbidity of patients treated with this regimen.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Within 8 weeks after surgical resection, patients undergo radiotherapy twice weekly over 2.5 weeks in the absence of unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed every 3 months for 2 years and then every 6 months for 3 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 40 patients will be accrued for this study.

• Procedure: adjuvant therapy
• Radiation: radiation therapy

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed desmoplastic melanoma

  • Locally recurrent OR at least 1 mm in depth

    • Recurrent tumor is defined as a tumor found no more than 2 cm from the previous excision or within the surgical bed (which includes the extent of previous skin flaps)

• Disease resected using standard wide resection or Moh's surgery

  • Histologically negative margins
  • Tumors on proximal extremities must have a 2 cm negative margin
  • Tumors on the head or neck or distal extremities may have margins less than 2 cm provided they are negative
• No melanoma with focally desmoplastic features, in which the desmoplastic melanoma is not the predominant histologic pattern of the tumor
• No nondesmoplastic neurotropic or nondesmoplastic spindle cell melanoma
• No evidence of metastatic disease (local nodal disease allowed)

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 18 and over

Performance status

• ECOG 0-2

Life expectancy

• At least 1 year

Hematopoietic

• Not specified

Hepatic

• Not specified

Renal

• Not specified

Other

• Not pregnant
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception

• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except for the following diseases:

  • Basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer
  • Carcinoma in situ of the cervix
  • Stage I breast cancer adequately treated with adjuvant therapy for which the patient is currently disease-free
  • Stage I or II prostate cancer treated with prostatectomy or radiotherapy with a biochemically-free disease status (i.e., for radical retropubic prostatectomy prostate-specific antigen [PSA] < 0.3 and for radiotherapy PSA < 2.0 above the post-treatment nadir)
• No nonhealing surgical wound
• No active infection at the surgical site

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• No concurrent adjuvant immunotherapy

Chemotherapy

• No concurrent adjuvant chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• No prior radiotherapy to the focused site of this study

Surgery

• See Disease Characteristics