The bony tumors and their treatment

Bone tumors can be located relatively easily (in the damaged area), but their treatment must be adapted to the type of severity present. Currently, there are two major groups of bone tumors: those that arise in the bone ( benign or malignant , according to their tendency to progress or stabilize) and those that originate in other organs and spread to the bone (the so-called bone metastasis ).

Benign bone tumors are treated surgically with their removal. In some cases, there is no intervention and periodic checks are simply carried out to document that the tumor remains stable and does not grow. However, malignant bone tumors and metastases must be treated by a team of coordinated specialists: the oncologist, the radiotherapist, the pain specialist and, logically, the orthopedist / traumatologist.

In general, it could be said that primitive bone tumors affect mainly children, adolescents and young adults; while metastases affect older people over 40-50 years, whose cases first require the presence of a cancer or malignant tumor in some other organ of the body.

The cause of these tumors is the massive and disorganized growth of the cells. Therefore, knowing the causes of this growth can help us detect the problem. At present, we have advanced a lot in the identification of the origin of the tumor and we can determine the role played by toxins, genetic alterations, viruses and other factors; but, still, there is still a long way to go.

The detection

The first cause of detection of a bone tumor is pain located in the affected area. It can also be identified when palpating the tumor, especially in the extremities (in areas such as the spine or pelvis is more complicated). In addition, there is a high number of tumors that are detected through routine radiological analysis, especially in cancer patients who undergo extensive controls precisely to find out if they have metastases or progressions of the cancer to other organs.