People with bone cancer may experience the following symptoms or signs. In some cases, individuals with bone cancer do not have any of these changes. Or, the cause of a symptom might be another medical condition that is not cancer.
Common Side Effects of Bone Cancer
When a bone tumor grows, it presses on healthy bone tissue and can damage it, which causes the following symptoms:
- Pain. The earliest symptoms of bone cancer are pain and swelling where the growth lies. The pain may reoccur at first. Then it can become more severe and steady later. The pain may get worse with motion, and there might be swelling in neighboring soft tissue.
- Joint swelling and stiffness. A tumor that takes place near or in joints might cause the joint to swell and become tender or stiff. This suggests a person might have a restricted and painful range of motion.
- Hopping. If a bone with a tumor breaks, or fractures, in a leg, it can result in a noticable limp. Limping is generally a symptom of later-stage bone cancer.
- Other less typical symptoms. Rarely, individuals with bone cancer might have symptoms such as fever, normally feeling unhealthy, weight loss, and anemia, which is a low red cell level.
Primary Bone Cancer
Some bone cancers take place through cancerous cells derived from the bones. There are a wide range of these kinds of growths. They include tumors of the bone tissue (osteosarcoma), tumors of the cartilage (chondrosarcoma), tumors of the ligaments and connective tissue (malignant fibrous histiocytoma), and tumors that begin at the base of the skull and spine (chordoma).
These types of bone cancers cause pain at the site of the tumors, as well as swelling and redness. Due to the fact that the typical bone tissue is replaced with cancerous tissue, the bones end up being weak and are more likely to fracture. Bone cancers of this type have the tendency to sap a lot of the body’s energy and resources, leading to severe tiredness and unexpected weight loss.
Another kind of bone cancer begins in the bone marrow, which is where the red blood cells are made. Multiple myeloma is the only type of bone marrow cancer that is thought about clinically to be a cancer of the bone, not merely of the blood. This is because multiple myeloma cells are able to multiply throughout the bones. Aside from bone pain and bone weakness (a result of regular bone cells being replaced with cancer), multiple myeloma can cause your body immune system to end up being weak as it stops producing feasible white blood cells.
Multiple myeloma can likewise cause kidney failure due to the fact that the kidneys end up being overworked by aiming to clear abnormal proteins from the blood (which are created by the cancer).
Another way in which the bones can establish cancer is by means of a procedure referred to as metastasis. Transition occurs when cancer from one part of the body spreads to other areas, which can include the bones. Breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer all have a tendency to spread to the bones. Metastatic bone cancer causes the same bone pain and weakness of other types of bone cancer, as well as fatigue and weight loss.
Survival Rates for Bone Cancer
Survival rates are often used by doctors as a basic method of going over an individual’s diagnosis (outlook). Some patients with cancer might wish to know the survival stats for individuals in similar circumstances, while others may not discover the numbers practical, or may even not want to know them. If you do not wish to read about the survival stats for bone cancer given up the next few paragraphs, avoid to the next area.
The 5-year survival rate describes the percentage of patients who live a minimum of 5 years after their cancer is diagnosed. Obviously, many individuals live much longer than 5 years (and numerous are cured).
Five-year relative survival rates presume that some people will die of other causes and compare the observed survival with that expected for people without the cancer. This is a better method to see the impact of the cancer on survival.
In order to get 5-year survival rates, medical professionals have to take a look at individuals who were treated a minimum of 5 years back. Improvements in treatment ever since may lead to a more favorable outlook for people now being diagnosed with bone cancer.
Survival rates are typically based on previous results of large numbers of individuals who had the disease, but they can not anticipate what will occur in any specific individual’s case. Many aspects might impact an individual’s outlook, such as the type and grade of the cancer, the patient’s age, where the cancer lies, the size of the growth, and the treatment got. Your doctor can inform you how the numbers below might apply to you, as she or he is familiar with the elements of your specific scenario.
For all cases of bone cancer combined (in both adults and children), the 5-year relative survival is about 70%. For adults, the most typical bone cancer is chondrosarcoma, which has a 5-year relative survival of about 80%. (Survival statistics for Ewing tumors and osteosarcoma can be found in our files about those cancers.)