Bone Cancer Types

Bone cancers are neoplastic growth of tissue in the bone. These abnormal growths can either be malignant or cancerous, or the growths can be benign or non cancerous. The abnormal growth in the bone is referred as bone tumors. These bone tumors are classified as 'primary tumors' and 'secondary tumors'. The primary tumors originate in the bone, whereas the secondary tumors originate in some other parts of the body. Secondary tumors or metastatic tumors are more commonly diagnosed as opposed to primary tumors. Primary tumors can again be divided into benign tumors and cancerous tumors. Bone tumors are more common in children and adolescents and are less common in adults. There are different types of bone cancer, let's see what are they.

Types of Bone Cancer

Osteosarcoma
This is one of the most common type of bone cancer. Osteosarcoma is more often diagnosed in children and teenagers, but can also be seen at any age as well. This type of cancer can grow in any part of the body, however, the most common part for this cancer to grow are legs and upper arm, rather the long bones of the arms. Osteosarcoma symptoms can be confusing and be mistaken for normal joint pain, but this cancer is very aggressive and the risk of it spreading to the lungs are very high.

Ewing's Sarcoma
This is a common type of bone cancer in children between the age 5 and 20 years of age. Ewing's sarcoma normally starts in the pelvis, upper leg, ribs and arms. This bone cancer type usually affects the middle part of the bones. It may also develop in the soft tissues, more often than not the immature nerve tissue.

Chondrosarcoma
This is said to be the second most common bone cancer and is accounts for approximately 25% of all malignant bone cancer. Chondrosarcoma normally starts in the cartilage cells. It can either be very aggressive, or relatively slow growing. This type of cancer is more common in people over the age of 40 years. It has the tendency to spread to lungs and lymph nodes in the body. Chondrosarcoma affects the bones of the pelvis, hips, upper arm, shoulder blades or the ribs.

Multiple Myeloma
This is one of the common bone cancer types. It is one of the bone marrow cancer types. This cancer is more commonly seen in adults between the age of 50 and 70. Multiple myeloma symptoms are normally not seen in the early stages of this cancer and can be mistaken for general joint, or body pain. Any bone in the body can be affected with this cancer type.

Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma
This type of bone cancer affects the soft tissues in the body including muscles, ligaments, tendons and fat. It is said to be one of the most common type of soft tissue malignancy, which affects people in later part of their lives. It is commonly seen to affect people around the age of 50 to 60 years. This type of cancer normally affects the extremities of the body. Statistics show, that it can occur twice the time in males as compared to females. It is also one of the severe types of cancer, which can spread rapidly to other parts of the body.

Fibrosarcoma
This is one of the rare bone cancer type. It affects people in the age between 35 to 55 years. It commonly affects the soft tissues of the leg, located behind the knee. This is also a cancer, which is more common in men than in women.

Chordoma
This is one of the rarest types of bone cancer. It is seen in adults over the age of 30 years. Chances of men being affected, are twice as compared to women. Lower or the upper end of the spinal column are more susceptible to this bone cancer type.

The spread of the disease decides the line of cancer treatment being given to the patients. Normally biopsy samples are taken to examine the tumors and ascertain if they are malignant or benign. In case they are malignant, further examination is carried out to know the types of bone cancer.