Patients with localized disease are treated effectively with wide field irradiation. Those patients with more extensive disease can nevertheless have a prolonged survival with the disease confined to the skin for many years. Progressive or symptomatic disease can be effectively treated with palliative irradiation. Rarely, patients with symptomatic systemic disease may require palliative chemotherapy.

AIDS-Related

These tumours are commonly seen in patients with AIDS. Small lesions (less than 2.0 cm in diameter) respond well to liquid nitrogen cryotherapy or intralesional interferon. Larger symptomatic lesions can be treated with radiotherapy. Radiation therapy is not recommended as a cosmetic treatment for flat asymptomatic lesions since the resulting post irradiation presentation is often larger and now more obvious than the initial lesion. Wide field irradiation is usually not indicated due to possible bone marrow suppression with a resulting impairment of the patient's immune status. Symptomatic systemic disease may require chemotherapy.

See also under Lymphoma, Chronic Leukemia, Myeloma​,