Bone cancer is a condition wherein the cells in your bone grow rapidly. Consequently, it destroys normal bone tissue. It may begin in your bone or spread to other body parts. Bone cancer is rare; studies suggest that most bone tumors are non-cancerous. However, they can weaken the bone, resulting in broken bones or other concerns. Some common benign bone tumors include enchondroma, osteoblastoma, osteochondroma, osteoid osteoma, and giant cell tumors.

Symptoms of bone cancer
Some prevalent bone cancer symptoms include:

Swelling or pain in the affected bones
Feeling fatigued
Decreased range of motion
Bone pain triggers from a minor trauma
Pain in the bones that keeps you up at night
Palpable hard mass in the chest, pelvis, and limb’s long bones.

A few less common signs of the condition are fever, loss of body mass, and easily broken bones. Though pain is the most prevalent bone cancer symptom, not all types of bone cancer inflict chronic pain.

Causes of bone cancer
The exact causes of bone cancer are not known, but some factors can aggravate a person’s chances of forming unusual growths in the bone. These are as follows:

Unusual cellular growth
Our body continually divides and replaces older healthy cells. Once this process completes, these cells die. But in some cases, the unhealthy cells keep living and form tissue masses that become tumors.

Radiation therapy
While it is a prevalent cancer treatment option, some people undergoing this treatment may develop osteosarcoma.

Chromosomal mutations
Seventy percent of osteosarcoma cases depict unusual characteristics in the chromosomes. Though rare, genetic mutations aggravate the risk of developing bone cancer. Mutations may happen because of radiation or have no specific cause.

Who is at risk?
Some risk factors associated with bone cancer are:

A family history of cancer, particularly bone cancer
Any previous exposure to radiation treatment or therapy
The presence of Paget’s disease, a condition characterized by abnormal bone breakdown and regeneration
A history of multiple tumors in the cartilage, the connective tissue within bones
The diagnosis or predisposition to Bloom, Li-Fraumeni, or Rothmund-Thomson syndrome

Diagnosis of bone cancer
For bone cancer diagnosis, your healthcare professional will use X-rays to view the pictures of your bones. CT scans and MRI scans may also be performed to get more detailed images of the areas surrounding the bones. These scans are pivotal for diagnosis and are obtained before deciding on treatment options.

Further, for diagnosis confirmation, the doctor will conduct a biopsy, wherein a small tissue piece is removed from the bones for examination under the microscope. It helps the doctor know which treatment option will work to combat your cancer.

Treatment options
Usually, the treatment plan chosen will depend on the cancer type, stage, preferences, and general health. Some bone cancers respond better to a particular treatment than others. So, your healthcare professional will sit you through the different treatment options to devise a plan that will potentially work best for your cancer.

For instance, you can treat some bone cancers with surgery, some will need a combination of chemotherapy and surgery, and others may demand radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery.

Surgery
Typically, the objective of surgery is to remove the whole malignant tumor. It involves special techniques to eliminate the tumor in one piece, together with a healthy tissue enveloping it. The surgeon will replace the lost bone with a bone from some other body area, with a replacement made of hard plastic, metal, or material from the bone bank. However, bone cancers located in a tricky spot or very large tumors might require partial or full amputation. That said, with the popularity of other treatment options, amputation is becoming less common. But if you undergo amputation, doctors fit an artificial limb. Further, you undergo training to perform daily tasks seamlessly with your new limb.
Chemotherapy
This treatment method employs anti-cancer treatment options, typically injected via a vein to combat the cancer cells. The treatment option works better for some types of bone cancers than others. For instance, chemotherapy is usually not beneficial in chondrosarcoma, but it is a viable treatment for Ewing sarcoma and osteosarcoma.
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy involves using high X-ray beams to kill cancer cells. As part of the therapy, you will lie flat on the table while a machine moves around you, directing the energy beams onto the precise areas of your body. Typically, you will undergo radiation therapy before the surgery to shrink the tumor and make it easier to get rid of. It also lowers the probability of amputation. Further, doctors may advise radiation therapy in people with bone cancer where surgery cannot remove the cancer. So, surgery is followed by radiation therapy to kill the leftover cancer cells. In advanced-stage bone cancer, radiation therapy helps keep symptoms like pain in check.