Bone Cancer Diagnosis
Bone cancer diagnosis includes physical examination, medical history of the patient and his or her family and some tests to examine the bone. These tests involve x-rays, blood tests, biopsies and CT scans. Doctors will also study the description of symptoms that help them to identify the other possible causes of bone cancer. The physical examination is done to check the muscle strength, reflexes and senses of touch.
Physical Examination
Doctors will examine the affected area to check whether there are lumps or bumps. This also includes the medical history of the patient that reveals the past treatments, medical conditions and past illness in family. Some cases show that patients with bone cancer belong to the families, which have some people with same disease. Hence, this helps to recognize the inheritance of the disease due to genetics.
Tests for Bone Cancer
Diagnosing bone cancer may include following test and exams:
- Blood Tests
Blood tests are useful to detect the allkaline phosphatase level in the blood of the patient. This also detects whether the boner tissues are active or not. Generally, bone tissues remain active when the cancer tumor produces abnormal or unhealthy bone tissues. Because of this complicated relations in bone tissues and cancer the test dos not prove effective in diagnosing bone cancer. - Biopsy
It is used to remove the sample tissues from the bone to perform test that examines these tissues. It helps to identify the presence of bone cancer in the body. Biopsy can be done in two ways: incisional biopsy and needle biopsy.Needle biopsy includes the removing of the sample tissues from the cancer affected area or the tumor. For that, a surgeon needs to make a hole in the bone with the help of a needle. Incisional biopsy involves the cutting of the bone cancer tumor and removing sample tissues.
- Imaging Tests
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
It is an advanced test that provides details of muscles, blood vessels, nerves, ligaments and tendons. The details of all these soft tissues help to identify how the bone tumor has affected the bone and the surrounding soft tissues of the bone. - Computed Tomography Scan (CT scan)
CT scan is an effective test by which the doctors get cross sectional image of the bones. This scan is beneficial to recognize the location and the size of the tumor in the bone. - X-rays
Plain x-rays are preferred to diagnose the bone cancer in the beginning, but the tumor cannot be identified at the early stage. If the tumor is displayed in the x-rays, it becomes easy to understand the types of the cancer immediately. Benign cancer and malignant cancer can be identified from the smooth and ragged border respectively. Benign tumor grows slowly whereas malignant cancer can grow quickly damaging the normal bone.
There are other diagnosing methods that include Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Radionuclide Bone scan.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
