Bone Tumours Flashcards
What are the types of bone tumours?
- secondary tumours from metastasis
- myeloma (plasma cell cancer)
- primary bone tumours (rare)
What cancers commonly spread to the bone?
- bronchus
- breast
- prostate
- kidney
- thyroid (follicular)
- childhood: neuroblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma
What bones are commonly affected with tumours?
- long bones
- vertebrae
haematogenous spread
What are the effects of metastasis to bone?
- can be asymptomatic
- bone pain
- bone destruction
- long bones = pathological fracture (from event that shouldn’t cause a fracture)
- spinal metastases = vertebral collapse, spinal cord compression, nerve root compression, back pain
- hypercalcaemia (from osteoclast activation)
What can be viewed in a PET CT of a bone with a tumour in it?
areas of high metabolic activity
Describe the mechanism of lytic lesions in the bone
- tumour cells stimulate cytokine release which activates osteoclast activity to resorb bone
- inhibited by biphosphonates
What are the common causes of sclerotic lesions?
- prostatic carcinoma
- breast carcinoma
- carcinoid tumour
Describe the mechanism of sclerotic lesions in the bone
- reactive new bone formation
- tumour cells induce cytokines that activate osteoblast activity
What are the common causes of a single bone metastasis and the treatment?
- renal and thyroid carcinomas
- surgical resection
- can be curative
Describe the clinical effects of myeloma
- bone lesions (lytic): can cause pain and fracture
- marrow replacement with plasma cells (anaemia, bleeding and infections)
- immunoglobulin excess (produced by plasma cells)
How can you differentiate between a normal plasma cell reaction to infection vs myeloma?
- in response to an infection, the plasma cells of the bone marrow will produce many different types of immunoglobulin
- in myeloma (clonal disorder), only 1 type of immunoglobulin is present - kappa/lambda
How can you measure immunoglobulin levels?
- serum electrophoresis
- urine (detect immunoglobulin light chains (Bence Jones protein)
What are the consequences of marrow replacement with plasma cells in myeloma?
- pancytopenia
- anaemia
- leucopenia: infections
- thrombocytopenia: haemorrhage
List the primary bone tumours
Benign:
- osteoid osteoma (bone forming)
- chondroma (cartilage forming)
- osteocartilagenous exostosis
Malignant:
- osteosarcoma
- chrondrosarcoma
- Ewing’s sarcoma
Describe the features of osteoid osteoma
- small benign osteoblastic proliferation
- commonly long bones, and spine
- pain which is worse at night and relieved by NSAIDs (not paracetamol)
- if it is near a joint = synovitis