A musculoskeletal tumor is an abnormal growth of cells that form a tumor in one of the bones or joints of the body. They can spread to other nearby tissues or invade distant organs or other body structures.

They are tumors located in bones, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, or, which are formed by cells of bone, tendinous, muscular, fatty, cartilaginous or ligamentous lineage.

Symptoms of a bone tumor

The patient may present with a palpable, and painless lump on a bone. It can also cause pain if the tumor is larger and produces local compression of other nearby structures. Aggressive tumors can weaken the bone and can cause bone fractures, without significant trauma or stress (pathological fracture).

Types of bone tumors

• Tumor: It is benign bone tumors: Bone tumors can be benign if they show slow and locally non-aggressive growth.
• Malignant Bone Tumors: Malignant tumors invade other structures or spread to other organs. These cancer cells are formed in other tissue and grow very quickly until they reach the bone.

How is bone cancer treated?

Benign tumors are usually treated by local resection. Malignant tumors are treated with resection of the tumor and nearby tissues, sometimes requiring extensive amputation and reconstruction with grafts or prosthetics. It may also be necessary in the treatment of malignant tumors to use chemotherapy, radiotherapy or specific oncological treatment.

The enchondroma is usually a benign tumor that originates in the gelatinous tissue of the bone, the cartilage that is most affected by this type of tumor is the one that lines the inside of the bones.

The most frequent enchondromas are usually:

• Enchondroma in the femur.
• Enchondroma on the fingers.
• Enchondroma in the knee.
• Enchondroma at the shoulder.
• Enchondroma in the tibia.

Symptoms of enchondroma

It does not usually have noticeable symptoms, although there are occasions when the symptoms of an enchondroma are:

• Pain in the hand from the fracture of a weakened bone.
• Growth or decreased growth of a particular bone that could be affected by this benign tumor.

On many occasions the symptoms are confusing or symptoms appear that have not been mentioned before, before the appearance of a symptom that could be related to the bones, our recommendation is to go to your trusted traumatologist specializing in the bone tumor.

If you live in Madrid, you can contact our team of traumatologists specializing in bone tumors in Madrid.

How is it diagnosed?

Because sometimes this type of tumor does not present any atypical symptoms, this tumor is usually detected through a routine check-up by means of an X-ray examination, or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).

Treatment

The treatment will be conditioned by various factors such as the patient's age, how advanced the tumor is or her opinion or preferences. In some cases, treatment may require surgery performed by a doctor specializing in bone tumors.

Osteosarcoma is a bone cancer that originates in bone cells. Osteosarcoma usually occurs in long bones, located in the legs such as knees, or even in the arms. Most cases of osteosarcoma occur in younger people, such as toddlers.

Osteosarcoma Symptoms:

The most common symptoms that usually occur in this type of bone cancer are:

• Inflammation and pain in the bones.
• Swelling in the affected bone.
• Bone injuries for no reason.

Types of Osteosarcoma

There are two types of osteosarcoma:

• Surface tumor: It is the least frequent type of osteosarcoma, it is a rare variant, which originates in the soft tissues.
• Central tumor: It is the most common type of osteosarcoma.

Treatments for Osteosarcoma

The treatment for Osteosarcoma will be different depending on the patient and their case, but most treatments usually consist of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Unicameral bone cysts: FULL EXPLANATION

The unicameral bone cyst is a benign lesion that appears in a central metaphyseal position, and is diagnosed by fracturing a bone without warning.

This cyst can be seen on X-rays that show the bone fracture and, on many occasions, after the bone fractures, the cyst disappears. Sometimes, it is necessary to perform minimally invasive surgery to remove the cyst.

Treatment of a unicameral bone cyst

Sometimes it is necessary to perform minimally invasive surgery to remove the cyst. The operation for the bone cyst consists of extirpation of the entire cyst.

Bone cancer surgery is usually applied to the vast majority of tumors, although, however, bone cancer surgery is recommended when it is a malignant tumor, which may affect the patient's quality of life.

Generally, non-painful benign tumors do not require surgery, unless there is a risk of evolution to a malignant tumor. In other cases, the intervention is performed to prevent a weakening or fracture of the bone, caused by unsightly superficial bulges, which can compress other structures.

Everything will depend on the type of bone tumor that the patient presents and the severity of the case, since with a benign tumor, as we have said before, surgery is not usually necessary.

How long should  you have to be hospitalized after removing a bone tumor?

In general, if everything goes well, discharge occurs the same day as surgery.

However, if the benign tumor is deeper or requires a more extensive resection, overnight hospitalization is usually necessary and pain is controlled with the usual analgesics.

In malignant tumors that require extensive resections or a more complex approach, the patient will require a longer hospitalization period.

Malignant tumors such as osteosarcoma usually require extensive surgical resection associated with preoperative and postoperative chemotherapy.

Five-year survival is 70%. Whenever possible, an attempt is made to maintain the limb without amputation, although amputation must sometimes be carried out due to the risk of relapse.

When there are metastases, the prognosis worsens and treatment of the affected organs is usually necessary.

What is bone grafting?

Bone grafting is a surgery to fill in the gaps in a broken or defective bone, sometimes used to place a new bone.

This surgery is carried out by a bone grafting specialist, who usually takes bone tissue from the pelvis or from a bone close to the defective one. Sometimes the bone tissue is harvested from a donor's bone or from an artificial bone, to subsequently carry out the reconstruction of the affected bone.

This procedure is usually carried out with the patient by general anesthesia.

Bone grafting recovery

The recovery usually varies, depending on the bone intervention and the size of the bone graft, between 3 weeks and 3 months, even more in some cases.

There are usually no complications at the time of solidification of the graft.

However, smoking and nicotine should be avoided, as they can impair bone consolidation and slow down its recovery. The patient will also not be able to play any sports for 6 months.