Bone cancer is a disease that occurs on or inside a bone. Usually, bone cancer involves a tumor filled with abnormal cells that will occasionally appear on the exterior of the bone. Similar to other types of cancer, bone cancer can be life threatening. Doctors are not completely sure what causes cancer, but they continue the search to find an answer. There are five different types of bone cancer that can affect people from ages 10-60 years old. Bone cancer can occur in any bone in the body from the legs to the head. Unfortunately, symptoms of bone cancer are not always obvious. Most of the time, pain is the most apparent symptom. When recognizing symptoms at an early stage, doctors can complete testing and supply treatment to the patient. Treatment for bone cancer usually begins with surgery followed by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Because of the need to kill all of the abnormal cells that are growing on or inside the bone, treatment for bone cancer can be very powerful. In most cases, treatment is very successful. Before starting cancer treatment, many patients rely on statistics for a survival rate, but statistics are simply averages. Each patient has a different circumstance with his/her disease.
There are 206 bones in the human body. Each bone serves several purposes. The bones of the body act as the structure that helps to support and protect many internal organs. The bones also serve as a muscle attachment that connects to the muscle to help during movement. But, most importantly, the bones of the body produce and store cells in the bone marrow. Cells make up the body tissue. However, some cells can become abnormal. Given that healthy cells make up body tissue, unhealthy cells grow and destroy body tissue and can often spread to other parts of the body. This abnormal growth of cells is called cancer. There are more than 100 types of cancer known to man, and 5 out of 100 are bone cancer.
The most common type of bone cancer is Osteosarcoma,