Saturday, April 9, 2011

Bone Cancer - Types and Management

An abnormal growth of cells in the tissues of bone leads to bone tumor (cancer).  This growth can be malignant (cancerous) or benign (noncancerous).

Types of bone cancer
Two main classifications are:
  1. Primary tumors
  2. Secondary tumors
Primary tumors
These are formed in the bone and can further be divided into:
  • Benign tumors
  • Cancer
Benign tumors commonly can be neoplastic, infectious, inflammatory and traumatic. The examples are,
  • osteochondroma,
  • giant cell tumor of bone
  • fibrous dysplasia of bone,
  • osteoma,
  • oesteoblastoma,
  • osteoid oesteoma,
  • aneurismal bone cyst and
  • Enchondroma.
Malignant (cancers) are severe and difficult to treat. These include:
  • Chondrosarcoma
  • Malignant fibrous histiocytoma
  • Multiple myeloma, which is a hematologic cancer but presents bone tumors.
  • Ewing’s sarcoma
  • Osteosarcoma and other sarcoma types.
Secondary tumors
These are metastatic tumors that have spread from other organs, like the lungs, breast and prostrate. The survival of the patient in this case is minimal because the cancer has reached to one or more other organs in the body.

Treatment
Bone cancer is treated through:
  • Radiation therapy
  • Chemotherapy
  • Surgery
  • Medication
Radiation and Chemotherapy are more effective in some types of the tumors such as Ewing’s sarcoma but less useful in others such as chondrosarcoma. So, the type of the tumor determines whether these therapies should be given or not.

Surgery includes limb amputation such as of the leg or arm or limb sparing surgery that mostly is a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Not all types of bone tumors are safely treated with surgical procedures. In limb sparing surgery, the affected bone is removed instead of amputation. This removal is carried out in two ways:

  • Artificial bone
  • Bone draft

The form of amputation is rotationplasty. In this process, the foot of the patient is turned upward in 180 degree and then it is used as a knee. Hemicorcorectomy is another type of amputation.

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