Bone tumors have a peculiar way of affecting people. Those below 20 years of age and those above 40-45 years of age are most susceptible to it. And why these ages form high risk factors is yet to be determined. Ewing’s sarcoma aggressively attacks children in the age range from 4 to 15 years. Chondrosarcoma, on the other hand, predominantly is contracted by those above 40 years of age. Osteosarcoma, the most common form of bone cancer affects youth in the age range of 10 to 20 years. It is as if bone cancer affects only the extremes of ages, sparing those at the center of the Gaussian distribution.

This much is known with certainty that any cancer begins as an error in the DNA of a cell which makes the cell grow and divide in an uncontrollable fashion. The cells thus go on growing without death and cause danger to the body. The faulty DNA can get easily passed on to the children from the parents and if that happens, the children too suffer the cancer. A family history of bone cancer thus makes one highly susceptible to bone cancer. The dividing cells form a mass or tumor and then begin to even invade the nearby areas in the body.

Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are powerful ways to combat diseases, infection and cancers. The problem with radiation is that it is powerful and literally ‘life changing’. It can cause mutations in healthy cells and affect the DNA. This sets off an uncontrollable chain reaction which can manifest as cancer. Even the best care taken during chemo or radiation therapy cannot rule out the chances of a patient damaging a cell. Once the cell is damaged and begins to grow uncontrollably, there is no way to predict how it might progress.

Millions of cancer cells constitute a malignant tumor. Many times, some of these cells break away from the mass of primary cancer and get carried to the bones in the body through the blood stream. They settle in the new region and begin to multiply. Soon, a secondary bone tumor or cancer is formed. Most commonly, the carcinomas of the lungs, prostate and breast spread to the bone. Since the cancers that metastasize on the bones are rarely curable, biopsies, especially in those above 70 years of age, to find out the origin of the tumor are not usually carried out.

Another cause of bone cancer is the sex of the person concerned. Men have a much greater chance of contracting it compared to women. For instance, chordoma is a very rare kind of cancer that is deadly with a survival rate of about five years after diagnosis. It is twice as common in males compared to females. Fibrosarcoma, another rare form of bone tumor is also more common among the men. The same is the case when it comes to chondrosarcoma, osteosarcoma or Ewing’s sarcoma. Osteosarcoma, the commonest kind of bone tumor seems to affect only the males!

Pre-existing benign defects present in the cartilage, such as enchondroma or osteochondroma, can lead to the second-most common kind of bone cancer known as chondrosarcoma. This accounts for almost 25 percent of all bone cancers. Though the cancer starts in the cartilage, it soon spreads to the bones and later even to the lungs and the lymph nodes. The most commonly affected bones are those in the pelvis and the hip. It is an aggressive form of cancer and the five year survival rate is as low as 30 percent.

Li-Fraumeni syndrome is an extremely rare disorder that is hereditary. The syndrome is caused due to mutations to the germline of the p53 gene which is a tumor suppressor gene. The gene actually protects the cell from one of the stages in the progression towards cancer. Thus, the malfunction in the gene increases the susceptibility to cancer and anybody who has had a familial history of Li-Fraumeni syndrome becomes very susceptible to bone tumors. Similarly, among the two kinds of retinablastomas, one is hereditary. This cancer of the eye, though treatable, increases the chances of cancer in the future for the patient. It also increases the susceptibility of the future generations to bone tumors.

Paget’s disease is a chronic affectation of the bones in the body. This viral infection that occurs slowly over a period of time is in itself difficult to diagnose because the symptomatic expressions and the bones affected are not always the same. The disease results in fractures, misshapen bones and arthritis in joints near the affected bones. Thus, there is a great chance of a few osteocytes (bone cells) breaking away and becoming cancerous.

There are many benign tumors affecting the bone that can develop into cancer of the bone in the future. These include benign forms of osteoid osteoma, osteochondroma, osteoblastoma, enchondroma, aneurysmal bone cyst, chondromyxoid fibroma, giant cell tumor and unicameral bone cyst.

Having discussed the many risk factors, it must be said that bone tumors are still a mystery as far as the medical determination of their causes is concerned. There are many cases where the bone tumors arise even though the patient has none of the known risk factors. This much is clear however that bone tumors are not contagious and do not spread from one person to another like infections.