Of all the different types of diseases, the one that most of you are afraid of is cancer. Already the doctors predicted that by 2030, one person from each household will suffer from cancer. Gone out the days when most of you had to embrace death due to cancer. Now, with the help of medical facilitation and advancement in medical science, doctors come up with various treatment methods to eliminate cancer. Interestingly you can have cancer in your bones.
Your bones are the ultimate structures of your body that help you to stand and move from one place to another. Having cancer in the bones means your movement is sure to be affected. Since most of you are not aware of bone cancer, we have come up with a blog. Cancer is different for different human beings. So, learning about it in-depth can help you understand the disease better.
In this blog, we have brought to you more about bone cancer, its types, symptoms, causes, and many more. Therefore, without any further delay, let’s learn more about bone cancer.
What is bone cancer?
When there is an abnormal or unusual mass of tissue or tumor growth in your bone, it is known as bone cancer. In medical terms, the doctors refer to this mass of tissues as bone sarcomas. This tumor can be a malignant one. This means the tumor present in your bone can grow and spread aggressively to other parts of your body. In short, your bone tumor is cancerous.
Surprisingly, there is no one particular bone in your body where bone cancer can occur. Rather, you can have a cancerous tumor in any of your bones. However, in most cases, the doctors have noticed that the cancerous tumor begins in your pelvic bone or the bones that are longer in your body. For example, you can get to see a cancerous tumor in the femur bone, shinbone, or in the upper arm bone.
Since it can spread all over your body aggressively, you should take the necessary steps as early as possible.
What are the different types of bone cancer?
Bone cancers are of different types. If you are suffering from primary bone cancer, it can be a serious and life-threatening one. These primary cancers occur directly on your bones, especially in the cartilage. On the other hand, secondary cancers are the ones that occur in a particular part of your body and can spread in your bones.
Apart from the primary and secondary ones, these are the different types of bone cancers you may come across:
- Osteosarcoma
- Ewing’s sarcoma
- Chondrosarcoma
- Multiple myeloma
How will you detect bone cancer?
This is a question that most of you might ask. An easy way to detect bone cancer is to look for some signs and symptoms. Most people embrace death from bone cancer because of delayed detection. So, be careful and pay attention to these signs and symptoms:
- Swelling and pain in some particular bone or bones
- Feeling extremely tired and weary
- Facing difficulty in moving from one location to another
- An excruciating pain in the bone that doesn’t let you sleep at night
- Feeling a hard and palpable mass in the bones of your limbs, chest, and pelvic region
- A pain leading to a minor trauma
Some of the other common symptoms of bone cancer include:
- Loss of weight
- Fever
- Brittle bones
- Bones breaking easily
Although you experience a lot of pain in your bones, not all types of bone cancers give you pain. So, the best way to determine this is to consult with a doctor the moment you notice anything unusual in your bones.
How does bone cancer occur?
You might be wondering about the causes of bone cancer. Well, there is not one but many causes of bone cancer. You can have an unusual growth in your bone due to the following:
- Atypical cellular growth
Your cells constantly divide and replace the old ones. When this is completed, the old cells die. When one old cell remains alive, it turns into a mass of tissue and develops into a tumor.
- Radiation therapy
Although radiation therapy helps to kill cancerous cells, it can form osteosarcoma as well. A high dosage of radiation in the body can develop tumors in your bones.
- Chromosomal mutations
Nearly 70% of people suffer from cancer due to chromosomal mutations. This mutation can also occur due to radiation.
Are you at risk of developing bone cancer?
You might be perplexed if you can develop bone cancer. Well, you have a huge risk factor of developing bone cancer if:
- You have a family history of cancer, specifically bone cancer
- You have gone through radiation therapy in the past
- You have had multiple tumors in the connective tissues of your bones
- You have suffered from Paget’s disease in the past
- You are a sufferer of Li-Fraumeni syndrome Rothmund Thompson syndrome or Bloom syndrome
How to diagnose bone cancer?
Generally, doctors divide the bone cancer in the following stages:
Stage 1 – The bone cancer has not yet spread anywhere apart from your bones
Stage 2 – Here, the cancer has not spread but can become a threat to another tissue lying close to it
Stage 3 –Bone cancer is now an invasive one and has spread to more than one area of your body
Stage 4 – Here, the cancer has spread to the connective tissues that are surrounding the tumor and has spread to the vital organs of your body like the lungs and kidney
Some of the common medical methods doctors use to detect the presence of cancer in your bones include:
- Biopsy
- Blood test
- Bone scan
- Imaging tests
Through all these tests, the doctors can find out both the presence of the tumor and the stage of cancer.
Conclusion
Therefore, understanding and detecting bone cancer at an early stage can save your life. Although cancer occurring in the bones is uncommon, consulting a private doctor in London for proper treatment at the right time can cure it a nd help you lead a happy life.
