Sarcoma, Know everything about rare type of cancer and its treatment

Sarcomas are a rare form of cancer and they can be distinguished from the much more commonly occurrent carcinomas as they happen in a different kind of tissue: the connective tissue, which is essentially made up of cells that connect or support other types of tissue in the human body. These tumors most commonly occur in the bones, muscles, tendons, cartilage, nerves, fat, and blood vessels of arms and legs, but they can also happen in other parts of the body;

Delhi’s best cancer doctors attest to this fact about sarcoma and its treatment.

Remember if you are seeking the best treatment for sarcoma in Delhi: there are more than 50 types of sarcoma, and these can be grouped into two main kinds: soft tissue sarcoma and bone sarcoma, also called osteosarcoma. The number of cases of soft tissue sarcoma and new cases of bone sarcomas have been on the rise India but worry they can be treated, often through surgery for removing the tumour.

We have some of Delhi’s best cancer doctors in Delhi, always ready to help and offer you hope in your courageous fight against cancer, get in touch with us for any queries you have.

Risk Factors

The exact causes behind sarcoma still remain unknown, however we do know some things that increase the risk of developing sarcoma:

• Your family has had a history of sarcoma
• In case you have Paget’s disease (a bone disorder)
• You have genetic disorders like neurofibromatosis, retinoblastoma, Gardner syndrome, Li-Fraumeni syndrome
• You’ve been exposed to radiation, this may also happen during treatment for some other cancer.

Symptoms of Sarcoma 

Soft tissue sarcomas prove difficult to detect as they can grow out anywhere in your body. Usually, the first sign is the appearance of a painless lump and as it gets bigger, it could press against nerves or muscles and make it really uncomfortable or give a person trouble breathing, or even both. There are currently no tests that can detect these tumours before noticeable symptoms appear. Osteosarcoma can and does show clear early symptoms, including:

• On and off pain in the affected bone, which can be worse at night
• Swelling, which usually begins weeks after the pain
• A limp, if the sarcoma is in a leg

Children and young adults have been found to get osteosarcoma more than adults. Also because healthy proactive children usually have swelling in their arms and legs, osteosarcoma is at times mistaken for growing pains or sports injuries. If a child’s pain doesn’t improve, or if it gets worse at night, and if it is in one arm or leg rather than both, consult a doctor. Adults who have this kind of pain,  should also visit a doctor right away

Diagnosis of Sarcoma

If your doctor thinks you may could have a sarcoma, you’ll probably need complete examination and testing, these include a biopsy, imaging tests like MRI, ultrasound, and CT scans, bone scans for osteosarcoma. 

TREATMENT of SARCOMA

How a sarcoma is treated will depend on which type of sarcoma a person has, where is it in the body it is, how far developed it is, and whether or not and if so, how far it has spread to other parts of the body, or metastasised.

Surgery can remove the tumour from your body and in most cases of osteosarcoma, doctors can remove only the cancer cells, and with no need need for removing an arm or leg.

Radiation can shrink the tumour before surgery or destroy the cancer cells that remain after surgery. It could also be the main treatment, if surgery isn’t an option.

Chemotherapy drugs can be used with or instead of surgery. Chemo is the first treatment when the cancer has spread.

Targeted therapies are novel treatments that use drugs or manmade versions of antibodies from the immune system to curb the spread and growth of cancer cells while leaving healthy normal cells undamaged.

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Surviving Sarcoma

Most people diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma can easily get cured by surgery alone, especially if the tumour is low-grade; it is not likely to spread to other parts of the body. More aggressive sarcomas are harder to treat with one form of treatment.The survival rate for osteosarcoma is in between 60% and 75% if the cancer hasn’t spread outside the area it started. It is much more likely to be cured if all of the cancer can be removed by surgery.