Prevention of bone cancer

A lot of people know that bone cancer is a disease where cancer cells form in the tissue of the bone. It is a deadly disease, especially if left untreated. First of all, people should know that bones consist of three types of tissue. These types are compact tissue, cancellous tissue and subchondral tissue. Compact tissue is the strong outer portion of most bones, cancellous tissue is a spongy tissue located inside of bones that contains bone marrow and the third tissue is the smooth bone tissue of the joints. Bones have various tasks and a person depends on the bones. They are important for support and they protect the internal organs. Along with the muscles they create movement. Apart from that, bones create and store blood cells in the bone marrow.

Understanding bone cancer and bone tumors

There are two types of bone tumors. They can be either benign or malignant. Benign is a noncancerous tumor, while malignant is a cancerous one. The good thing is that benign ones occur more often than malignant tumors. Both of these tumor types grow and by doing that compress healthy bone tissue and replace it with abnormal tissue. However, benign tumors do not spread and are deadly in only rare cases.

Types of bone cancer

There are three types of bone cancer. Osteosarcoma is the most common type. Apart from that one, chondrosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma are the other two types. Osteosarcoma is the type that develops in the new tissue of growing bones. Chondrosarcoma usually happens to adults, while the other two types occur more often with children and adolescents.

Causes and risk factors

There is still no known cause of bone cancer. However, there are certain risk factors that contribute to the showing up of bone cancer. People with these risk factors are more likely to end up with bone cancer. Some of the known risk factors of bone cancer are previous radiation or chemotherapy, a history of Paget’s disease, family history of bone cancer and a hereditary retinoblastoma.

Bone cancer prevention

Preventing a bone cancer actually means avoiding the known risk factors and increasing the protective factors. Protective factors can usually be controlled. A person who avoids risk factors will not be safe from the disease but will drastically decrease the chances of ending up with it. A person can talk to a doctor about preventive methods if he or she wants to.