Diagnosing and Staging Sarcoma

Soft Tissue Sarcoma (STS) is a relatively low occurrence cancer. The treatment for STS could not be just one amongst surgery or chemo or radiation as the location and aggression of the tumor demands a combination of treatments to ensure complete cure. The methodology where surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are used is called Multi-modality therapy.

· Surgery is generally the first step in the treatment course. Here the tumor is removed completely, which sometimes makes amputation of the hands or limb unavoidable. With improved technology and surgical facilities however this scenario is brought down nowadays. Also an area of about 2 cm surrounding the tumor is also scrapped to ensure no further spreading.

· Radiation therapy used at the time of surgery is observed to have improved the chance of survival. A research has led to the conclusion that pre surgical radiation helps in faster healing of the wound.

· Chemotherapy is used mainly to destruct those cancer cells which float untied in the body. This is a good method to reduce further spreading of the disease. Also chemo before the surgery would aid by shrinking the tumor.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a cancer of the bones and soft tissues found in children. Rhabdomyosarcoma is basically of two types

• Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma:

As the name implies the cancer cells look like the developing muscular cells in a six to eight week old embryo. This is by far the most common rhabdomyosarcoma and is found to affect the regions of head, bladder, vaginal region in girls /the prostates in boys and the neck areas. There are high chances the treatment could be curative for Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma.

• Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma:

Here the cancer cells look like the muscle cells at of a fetus that has developed for ten weeks. The areas where the disease affects are legs, arm, back etc.  The cancer cells tends to form hollow gaps between them and hence the name. Also this is an aggressive form of sarcoma and treatment available is very minimal.

Tumors when formed in the head can cause pain in head, nausea, vision problems, breathing problems etc.  If the cancer is formed in genitourinary areas then the symptom might be difficulty in normal bowel movements and disruption of the functioning of the urinary bladder. When the affected area is extremities then normal functioning of the hand or leg would be disrupted.

Sarcoma is type of cancer that affects the bones, soft tissues and muscles in our body. Rhabdomyosarcoma is again a rare type of sarcoma that affects kids. It constitutes to about 3.5% of the entire sarcoma cases reported. Rhabdomyosarcoma has an implied meaning. The word could be split into rhabdo which means shape of rod, myo which means muscles and sarcoma which is cancer.

The condition of rhabdomyosarcoma occurs when the rhabdomyoblasts multiply abnormally. Rhabdomyoblasts are the cells of the embryo which later develop into the skeletal muscles. Analyzing the statistics of rhabdomyosarcoma it occurs predominantly in children and boys are 1.5% more vulnerable than the girls to acquire the disease. The incidence is higher in white people indicating that the melanin could play a part in deciding the chances of the disease.

The main reason for rhabdomyosarcoma is attributed as genetic abnormalities. These mutations could be inherited and the children with rhabdomyosarcoma also tend to have poor development of other organs like heart, lungs, and brain etc., the condition called as congenital abnormality. The genetic mutation called neurofibromatosis type 1also tends to influence the chances of rhabdomyosarcoma.

Diagnosis of sarcomas is difficult. The only symptom is pain which is highly mistook as weakness in bones. There are a lot of obstacles around the diagnosis of sarcomas as the oncologists never get to do much research, as it is very rare form of cancer and the case history available is very limited. When there is a symptom about the occurrence of sarcomas it is important that a doctor with adequate knowledge and experience in diagnosing the disease is consulted.

A biopsy is very important to confirm the occurrence of sarcomas. Biopsy is testing a sample of the cancerous tissue by pathologists.  The biopsy could be surgical or percutaneous. Staging the sarcoma is also difficult due to the various areas in which it could occur. The size and characteristics of the cancer cells are used to stage the disease.  The musculoskeletal tumor society has come up with a number of stages of the disease based on the cell differences from normal cells.

Also to understand the severity of the bone lesions if any and the degree of metastases oncologists do take the aid of X-ray, CT scan or MRI of the region of infection and the chest area as well.

Sarcoma is an in fact the rarest form of cancer forming about 1% of the patient. Sarcomas could be found in the muscles, nerves, and bones. Cancer of the connective tissue and bones is also called sarcoma. Sarcomas are a collective name given to more than forty types of cancer. Sarcomas are named based on the place in which they are formed. Osteosarcomas are the most popular form of sarcomas which is a cancer of the bones. This is 35% of the total reported sarcoma cases. The next high incidence is of Chondrosarcoma which is the cancer of the cartilages and that forms 30% of the reported cases. There are other less common sarcomas like fibrosarcomas which occur in fibrogenic tissue and Ewing’s sarcomas which is common in children.

The root cause of sarcomas is much unknown in most cases. But the observation is that exposure to radiation at some point of time could be a cause. Apart from that the family history could also be a reason. Occurrences of Li Fraumeni and Paget’s in close family tend to increase the occurrence of sarcomas. However there is no screening of sarcomas