What is Sarcoma Cancer?
Last Update onĀ September 14, 2022
Medically reviewed by Dr. Priya Tiwari
| Different Types | Signs, and Symptoms | Causes | Risk Factors | Diagnoses | Treatments | Surviving |
Sarcoma cancer is a form of cancer that can appear anywhere on your body.
The term “Sarcoma Cancer” refers to a large range of cancers that start in the soft (also known as connective) tissues and bones (soft tissue sarcoma). The tissues that join, enclose, and support other body structures are where soft tissue sarcomas cancer develops. This type of cancer starts in muscle, fat, blood vessels, nerves, tendons, and joint lining.
Sarcomas cancer comes in over 70 different varieties. The type, location, and other aspects of sarcoma cancer will all affect how it is treated.
1. Different types of Sarcoma Cancer:
- Angiosarcoma
- Chondrosarcoma
- Carcinoma cancer
- Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans
- Desmoplastic small round cell tumors
- Epithelioid sarcoma
- Ewing sarcoma
- A gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST)
- Kaposi’s sarcoma
- Leiomyosarcoma
- Liposarcoma
- Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors
- Myxofibrosarcoma
- Osteosarcoma
- Rhabdomyosarcoma
- Soft tissue sarcoma
- Solitary fibrous tumor
- Synovial sarcoma
- Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma cancer
2. Signs and Symptoms of Sarcoma Cancer:
Soft tissue sarcomas can develop anywhere in the body, making them difficult to detect. The first symptom is typically a painless bump. As the lump grows, it may press against your muscles or nerves, causing discomfort, breathing problems, or even both. There are no diagnostic procedures that can detect these cancers before they manifest symptoms for you.
Sarcoma symptoms and signs include:
- A lump through all the skin that can be felt and may or may not be painful.
- A bone ache
- Unexpectedly breaking a bone, such as when there is no injury or only minor damage.
- Continent pain
- Loss of weight
- Sarcomas cancer comes in over 70 different types. The type, location, and other aspects of sarcoma cancer will all affect how it is treated.
Osteosarcoma occurs more frequently in children and young adults than in adults. However, osteosarcoma might be misdiagnosed as growing pains or a sports injury because healthy, active children and teenagers frequently experience pain and swelling in their arms and legs. Consult a doctor if your child’s discomfort doesn’t go away, gets worse at night, and only affects one arm or leg rather than both.
3. Causes of Sarcoma cancer:
Most sarcoma cancer has unknown causes.
Sarcoma Cancer often develops when changes (mutations) occur in the DNA of cells. A cell’s DNA is organized into numerous distinct genes, each of which carries a set of instructions directing the cell’s performance of certain tasks as well as its growth and division.
When healthy cells would normally die, mutations may instruct some cells to proliferate and divide uncontrolled and to live on. If this occurs, an aberrant cell tumor may develop when the abnormal cells gather. A cell’s ability to separate and propagate (metastasize) to different body sections.
4. Risk Factors of Sarcoma Cancer:
Sarcoma cancer risk factors can include the following:
Inherited syndromes: Some cancer-risk-raising disorders can be passed down from parents to children. Neurofibromatosis type 1 and familial retinoblastoma are examples of conditions that raise the chance of sarcoma cancer.
Radiation therapy for cancer: The chance of later getting sarcoma cancer increases after radiation therapy for cancer.
Chronic swelling (lymphedema): When the lymphatic system is obstructed or damaged, it can result in lymph edema, which is swelling caused by a buildup of lymph fluid. It raises the chance of Angiosarcoma, a kind of sarcoma cancer.
Exposure to chemicals: A sarcoma cancer that affects the liver can be more likely in people who are exposed to such chemicals, such as some chemical products and herbicides.
Exposure to viruses: In persons with compromised immune systems, the human herpes virus 8 can increase the likelihood of developing the Kaposi’s sarcoma tumor.
5. Diagnoses of Sarcoma:
You’ll likely require a comprehensive physical examination and a series of tests, including:
- A biopsy is a sample of tumor cells.
- Imaging procedures like a CT scan, ultrasonography, or MRI are used to see inside your body.
- If you feel that you could have osteosarcoma, do bone diagnosing.
6. Sarcoma Treatments:
The type of sarcoma cancer you have, its location in your body, its degree of development, and whether or not it has metastasized or spread to other parts of your body all affect how it is treated.
Surgery: The cancer cells are removed from your body during surgery. In the majority of osteosarcoma situations, the doctor can only remove the cancer cells; your arm or leg won’t need to be amputated.
Radiation: Radiation can reduce the size of the tumor before surgery or eliminate any cancer cells that may still be present. If surgery is not a possibility, it could serve as the primary treatment.
Chemotherapy: Surgery can be used in conjunction with or instead of chemotherapy medications. When cancer has spread throughout the body, chemotherapy is the initial treatment for Sarcoma.
Targeted therapies: Targeted therapies are more recent medical procedures that stop the growth of cancer cells while sparing healthy cells damage by using medications or synthetic versions of immune system antibodies.
7. Surviving Cancer Sarcoma:
If the tumor is low-grade, which means it is unlikely to spread to other regions of the body, the majority of patients who are diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma are treated by surgery alone. Successfully treating more aggressive sarcoma cancer is more challenging.
If cancer has not moved outside of the initial site, the survival rate for osteosarcoma is between 60% and 75%. If all of cancer can be surgically removed, the likelihood of recovery is higher.
Also, read Carcinoma cancer