Osteosarcoma
Osteosarcoma is the type most common bone cancer. It usually occurs in adolescent boys, in general, they begin to “catch lugs. Osteosarcoma affects twice as many boys than girls and often occurs in people higher than average. Some medical problems may be due to genes, such as retinoblastoma, a tumor that develops in the retina, may predispose some adolescents to develop osteosarcoma. The same happens if a teenager has received radiation treatments for other bone cancers.
The most common symptoms of osteosarcoma are pain and swelling of the legs or arms, sometimes accompanied by the appearance of a bulge. Some people suffer more pain at night or exercise. Often, osteosarcoma is found in bones surrounding the knee, but can also occur in other bones. In exceptional cases, a tumor can spread or cause outside the bone metastases in nerves and blood vessels of the limb. (The word metastasis is the term doctors use when tumor cells away from the original cancer site and move to different tissues or organs). (more…)