Bone tumors happen when cells inside a bone form a lump of abnormal tissue. They tend to form in younger people and are usually benign (non-cancerous).
Treatment options range from observation to surgery. Your treatment will depend on the location, type, and size of your tumor.
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Doctors define bone tumors as abnormal masses that form within a bone. They can be benign or malignant (cancerous).
Bone tumors happen when cells in the bone grow out of control. They can form anywhere in the body, but most often form in the larger bones of the arms, legs, and pelvis. The tumors can grow in any part of the bone, from the surface to the marrow (the spongy center of a bone).
Although benign bone tumors don’t tend to spread beyond the bone, they can cause pain and swelling. They also make a bone more likely to fracture.
Benign bone tumors usually require treatment, but it's rare for them to become cancerous.
Malignant bone tumors can spread cancer to other parts of the body.
Both benign and malignant bone tumors are rare.
Benign bone tumors usually affect children and young adults under age 30. Most grow slowly and often stop growing when a teen’s bones stop growing.
Malignant bone tumors may affect younger or older people. There are two categories of malignant bone tumors:
There are many types of benign bone tumors. There are also health issues that resemble bone tumors, which doctors treat the same way they treat bone tumors.
Bone tumors and similar health problems include:
The most common types of malignant bone tumors are:
Cancers that begin elsewhere in the body and spread to the bone include:
Doctors don’t know what causes bone tumors.
Because doctors don’t know exactly what causes bone tumors, risk factors are unclear.
Possible risk factors may include:
A bone tumor may cause a bone to become weaker, which could lead to a fracture or complete break of the bone.
Malignant bone tumors may spread cancer to other parts of the body.
The symptoms of bone tumors vary. Some people have no symptoms. They may only find out they have a bone tumor when they have an x-ray for another problem.
Other people have considerable pain and swelling around the tumor.
Symptoms of bone tumors include:
If you have an unexplained or painful bump under your skin, you should see your doctor. They'll also check for stress fractures and infections, which have similar symptoms.
To diagnose a bone tumor, your doctor will ask about your medical history, your overall health, what medicines you take, and your symptoms. They'll want to know if any of your relatives had tumors or cancer.
Your doctor will also do a physical exam to look for:
If your doctor suspects that you have a bone tumor, they may order 1 or more of the following:
If your doctor needs to explore the tumor further, you may need a biopsy. A biopsy removes a small piece of the tumor so doctors can examine it under a microscope.
If your tumor isn’t cancerous or causing pain, your doctor may simply choose to monitor it. Some tumors never cause problems. Some even go away without treatment, especially in children.
Your doctor may prescribe regular imaging tests, like x-rays, to see if the tumor shrinks or grows over time.
Doctors may treat some benign tumors with medication, such as bisphosphonates, a group of drugs that help strengthen bones. Some will disappear with medicine alone.
Some benign bone tumors require surgery. If the tumor could cause a broken bone, or already has, your doctor will need to remove it.
Some bone tumors come back even after surgery. Your doctor may run periodic scans of the area to see if more tumors form. It’s rare but certain benign tumors can spread or become cancerous.
Treatment of malignant bone tumors is complex because your doctor will need to find out whether the cancer has spread. Your doctor will choose treatment based on the tumor’s size, location, and stage of development.
If the cancer is only in the bone tumor, it's easier to treat. If it has spread elsewhere in the body, it's more serious and harder to cure.
To treat a malignant bone tumor, your doctor may use a combination of radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery.
Your doctor may prescribe radiation treatments for malignant bone tumors. Radiation therapy uses high-dose x-rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. It only treats the tissue exposed to the beam, as opposed to treating cancer elsewhere in your body.
Chemotherapy may be part of your treatment for malignant bone tumors. Chemo is a systemic treatment — doctors use it to kill cancer cells that have spread into your bloodstream.
Doctors will use chemotherapy when there's a good chance that cancer isn't confined to one area. You can take chemotherapy by pill or intravenously (by injection into a vein).
You’ll likely need surgery to remove a malignant bone tumor. There are two main types of surgery:
Your recovery time will depend on the type of bone tumor you had and what type of surgery your doctor did. After treatment, you’ll keep seeing your doctor for regular follow-up visits and tests, likely every few months.
The outcome for people with benign bone tumors is usually good.
The cure rate for malignant bone tumors depends on the type and stage of cancer, its location, and size. Your doctor can give you more information about your specific disease.
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