“Are bone cancer tumors usually small?”
My son's friend was diagnosed with bone cancer but the tumor that he had was quite small. His parents thought that it was just a bump on his leg. Are bone cancer tumors usually small?
2 Answers
Hello.
Your question is complicated. Bone cancer tumors are malignant (cancerous) changes in a bone which can occur anywhere in the body and arise in bones. In general cancers are growths that lose their ability to grow when they reach tissues surrounding them. They also have the ability to invade surrounding tissues and also the ability to spread to other areas (other organs) in the body and grow in those areas. Bone cancers (I am presuming that you are referring to osteogenic cancers) are rare and effect about 200 patients per year in the United States in patients under 20 years of age.
Your question about size of the tumor depends on the location and tissue type of the tumor. The person that you are describing sounds like his parents were aware of the abnormality and watched it for a short time. They then took the patient to a doctor who presumably performed or ordered a biopsy for pathological analysis. The size of the tumor depends on whether the tumor appeared in a place that caused symptoms which usually implies pain at the site.
Appropriate staging X-rays need to be performed to rule out metastases which often occur in the lungs. Treatment can then be recommended by a pediatric oncologist (cancer doctor) and may be a combination of surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. It is important to ask for a consultation with a specialist in this type of cancer.
More information can be reliably obtained from the websites of the National Cancer Network (www.nccn.org) in their section on pediatric tumors, or The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (www.chop.edu).
Your question is complicated. Bone cancer tumors are malignant (cancerous) changes in a bone which can occur anywhere in the body and arise in bones. In general cancers are growths that lose their ability to grow when they reach tissues surrounding them. They also have the ability to invade surrounding tissues and also the ability to spread to other areas (other organs) in the body and grow in those areas. Bone cancers (I am presuming that you are referring to osteogenic cancers) are rare and effect about 200 patients per year in the United States in patients under 20 years of age.
Your question about size of the tumor depends on the location and tissue type of the tumor. The person that you are describing sounds like his parents were aware of the abnormality and watched it for a short time. They then took the patient to a doctor who presumably performed or ordered a biopsy for pathological analysis. The size of the tumor depends on whether the tumor appeared in a place that caused symptoms which usually implies pain at the site.
Appropriate staging X-rays need to be performed to rule out metastases which often occur in the lungs. Treatment can then be recommended by a pediatric oncologist (cancer doctor) and may be a combination of surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. It is important to ask for a consultation with a specialist in this type of cancer.
More information can be reliably obtained from the websites of the National Cancer Network (www.nccn.org) in their section on pediatric tumors, or The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (www.chop.edu).
Bone cancers can be a various sizes, but often are noticed by parents as a small bump.
