Osteosarcoma affects
mainly adolescents between the ages of 15 and 25 but children as young have 7
have been diagnosed with it more recently. The majority of people discover they
have the illness following an accident to the area where the tumour is. They can
have a fall or a knock that is then looked at by a doctor and treated
accordingly. Frequently the tumour is not actually discovered until various
other treatments have failed to solve the problem and eventually an x-ray is
carried out. As with all cancers, early diagnosis increases the chances of
survival but because people are not aware of this cancer, they do not press their
doctors for an x-ray to be carried out. Sometimes the cancer can be very
advanced and have spread before it is diagnosed. The main areas for this cancer
to spread to are other bones and the lungs. The survival rate for this type of
cancer is very low compared to other cancers and the chemotherapy treatment is
particularly harsh.
As this cancer
is relatively rare compared to other cancers like leukaemia, breast cancer, lung
cancer etc. there is not a lot of money put into investigating the causes and
the treatment. The treatment has not changed greatly over the last few years and
this needs to be investigated. Surgically things have improved in as much as
where ever it is possible prosthesis will replace the bone that has to be
removed as opposed to amputation. The latest development is that a new
prosthesis is being used which eliminates the need for surgery to lengthen it as
the child/adolescent continues to grow. This is a great advance as some children
were having to have two operations a year during their main growth period and
each operation involved at least a week in hospital followed by intensive
physiotherapy sessions.
