What is a bone tumor? How is it treated?

  Bone tumors are tumors that occur in bones or their appendages (blood vessels, nerves, bone marrow, etc.), which used to be uncommon, but in recent years, the incidence has been increasing due to environmental factors and improved diagnostic techniques.  Unlike other tumors, bone tumors are more common in adolescents, and there are many different types of tumors, which are not understood by many patients and physicians, resulting in more misdiagnosis and mistreatment. Like other tissues in the body, the exact cause of bone tumors is unknown; there are benign and malignant bone tumors, and some of them are between benign and malignant. Benign bone tumors are easily curable and have good prognosis. Malignant bone tumors develop rapidly and were previously considered to have poor prognosis, high disability and mortality, and no satisfactory treatment. However, with the improvement of diagnosis and treatment in the last two to three decades, malignant bone tumors are no longer as terrible as imagined.  Generally speaking, the diagnosis of bone tumor usually requires three aspects: clinical symptoms, imaging and pathological examination.  In order to make a correct diagnosis, a comprehensive analysis is required. Clinical symptoms include: pain in bone or joint (including pain in spine), bony mass, and limb dysfunction. Imaging tests include X-ray, CT and MRI, digital subtraction angiography (DSA), radionuclide bone imaging (ECT), and positron emission computed tomography (PET). Pathological examinations include: frozen sections, routine pathological examinations, and immunohistochemistry.  For early diagnosis, we believe that clinical symptoms are critical. Without any discomfort, people usually do not go to the hospital easily. Once you have some of the symptoms mentioned above, it is recommended that you go to the hospital as soon as possible and do not blindly give yourself an unauthorized diagnosis. For example, some patients have pain and discomfort in a certain area and think that they have strained themselves causing synovitis, arthritis, lumbar strain and other diseases. In addition, there are some tumors and tumor-like lesions, which do not have any symptoms in the early stage, especially in many children, because they accidentally bruise a certain part of the body and find the tumor accidentally by taking a film. Therefore, for children, routine radiography is recommended after trauma to a certain part of the limbs. For adults, if they have unexplained persistent nocturnal low back pain, they should go to the hospital as soon as possible to clarify the cause and exclude the possibility of metastatic tumor in the spine.  In fact, during the visit to the hospital, the main purpose is to solve the following problems: 1. whether it is a bone tumor or non-bone tumor lesion; 2. whether it is a benign bone tumor or malignant bone tumor; 3. whether it is a primary bone tumor or metastatic bone tumor.  This will enable to choose the best plan for the next treatment. Including the judgment of the future treatment effect. After the diagnosis is clear, don’t worry too much about the treatment, especially if it can be detected early. Treatment of benign bone tumors is relatively simple, and usually good results can be achieved through surgery alone.  For malignant bone tumors, the basic treatment principle can be summarized as “three preservation”, namely: preservation of life, preservation of limb and preservation of function.  Many of the malignant bone tumors that required amputation in the past, with the improvement of diagnosis and treatment technology in recent years, most of them can be preserved by advanced methods such as scraping, resection, or lumpectomy + reconstruction. Moreover, there are good integrated treatment measures such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, biological therapy and Chinese medicine treatment. This has greatly improved the treatment effect of many tumors compared with the previous ones. Even for many bone tumors that originate from metastases from other organ systems, minimally invasive techniques have made great development in bone tumor treatment in recent years. For many benign bone tumors, the application of radiofrequency ablation technology, scraping of lesions under arthroscopic surveillance, and minimally invasive percutaneous surgery under CT guidance can be considered for treatment. For some malignant bone tumors and metastases, radiofrequency ablation technique, argon helium knife minimally invasive treatment, vertebral retroconvex plasty, intra-arterial perfusion chemotherapy, and intra-arterial embolization treatment can be applied.  In conclusion, once diagnosed with bone tumor, you should have the courage to face the reality, maintain a good health psychology and actively cooperate with the doctor’s treatment. Also understand the necessary daily health care and preventive measures to avoid the occurrence of complications. It is also recommended that patients and family members should keep in touch with specialists in this field and consult regularly to get the best health care.