Bone cancer survival rate

This type of cancer mainly affects the younger population and it is not a common condition in adults, but if it appears in the elderly people, it is usually the metastatic cancer spread from some other tumor in the body. When one develops some benign bone tumor, it should not taken it lightly since there are some types of benign bone tumors that have the tendency to become malignant.

Bone cancer can be of two types. While the primary bone cancer usually starts in the bone tissues of the long bones in the body, the metastatic bone cancer typically begins in some other organ in the body and then expands to the bones.

Types of bone cancer

There are several types of bone cancer and some of the most common are osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, fibrosarcoma, and chordoma. Ewing's sarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, lymphoma and multiple myeloma are also the types of bone cancer, but they are not very common.

Pain in the bones is a quite expectable symptom of this type of cancer. However, the variety and severity of the symptoms tend to differ from person to person, depending not only on the stage and grade of the cancer, but on the age and health of the patient as well. Apart from pain, a lump may be formed either on a bone or in the tissues that surround the affected bone. Some other symptoms of the bone cancer include weight loss, fever and excessive night sweating.

Survival rates for bone cancer

The bone cancer survival rate is influenced by various factors. Some of the factors that determine the survival rate for the bone cancer are the type, size, location and stage of the discovered bone cancer, the patient’s age and general health and the patient’s response to the available treatments. When the cancer is discovered in the primary stage and when it is limited only to the primary site, the survival rate made for the next five years is about 85% and it is estimated that about 42% of the cases is diagnosed at this phase.

The bone cancer survival rate in cases when it is detected in the second stage and when it is expanded to the lymph nodes is about 70%, while the survival rate for the metastatic bone cancer already spread to the other organs is about 32%. The bone cancer survival rate for about 8% of the cases when the staging cannot be done is around 63%.