Causes of bone cancer

Bone cancer

Bone cancer is a cancer type that occurs in the bones and its cause is still unknown. There are some factors that canenhance the risks of bone cancer and they include Paget's disease, previousradiation, or previous chemotherapy. Symptoms that indicate the presence ofbone cancer are different and can alter depending on the place in the bodywhere they appear. Since medicine doesn’t have the real cause for bone cancerdevelopment, we are not familiar with its causes. The thing that is known is that bone cancer isn’tcontagious, and it can’t be transferred from one person to other. As we have stated earlier, there are some risk factors thatcan lead to bone cancer, which is why some people do have more changes indeveloping bone cancer than others.

Risk Factors

Some of the riskfactors that can be included in bone cancer development include age. For example,children and young adults have more chances in developing bone cancer than theolder ones. A person who has been treated from some condition with radiation orchemotherapy is considered to belong to the group of people who are morelikely to develop bone cancer. Hereditary factor is also important, because it isconsidered that people who have someone in their family tree with bonecancer, are at risk of getting it, too. People with hereditary retinoblastomaare also people who have predispositions for bone cancer. Hence, when a doctor is trying to diagnose bone cancer, hewill first look for information regarding patients’ age and other factors thatcan put him into one of the groups that are at higher risk.

Types of Bone Cancer

Benign Bone Cancer is a type, which is more common in the bonetumors that are malignant. The fact thatit can’t grow and spread and that it is not life-threatening is a littleencouraging. Malignant Bone Cancer Types are Osteosarcoma, Chondrosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma. Osteosarcoma appears in the knees,upper legs and upper arm and includes people between the age of 10 and 25. Chondrosarcoma appears in the area of cartilage and affectspeople who are in their 50s and 60s. It can develop in the pelvis, upper legsand shoulders. Ewing's Sarcoma is a cancer type thatappears in the immature nerve tissue in the bone marrow, and which has a tendency of spreading to pelvis, upperlegs, ribs and arms.Metastatic Bone Cancer appears if a bone cancer spreads to lungs, for example, and then the new tumor has the same celltype of the bone cancer and the disease is treated as bone cancer. This type ofcancer is very rare in the USA.Secondary Bone Cancer appears more often that theprimary bone cancer, and types of secondary bone cancer are breast cancer, lungcancer and prostate cancer.