Pediatric Bone Cancer, Research Paper Example

Osteosarcoma is a rare type of pediatric bone cancer; it often occurs in the long bone and is frequently detected after a patient under the age of 18 visits the hospital for pain or trauma that is being experienced (Janeway et al., 2009). Often, the onset of the symptoms indicate that metastasis, a spread of the disease, has already occurred, so physicians that work with this disease often conduct body scans immediately after the patient is admitted into the hospital to determine whether it has spread to other organs (Berman et al., 2008). Since the primary tumor is of the bone, it is located nearby the blood stream so angiogenesis is common. In order to treat the patient, the primary tumor is often removed first. Amputations were common for this purpose prior to the last several years, as surgeons now elect to resect, remove, the tumor in a manner that preserves the leg. However, it is important for them to cut around the tumor completely to ensure that no malignant cells are left over. In addition, patients who have this disease are also provided with chemotherapeutic, or chemical, drugs because there is a high need to destroy metastatic cells to prevent recurrence. It is therefore necessary to find new and safe ways to treat osteosarcoma.

Chemotherapy is only somewhat effective because many cancer cells become resistant to the use of certain drugs. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the physician to determine when this will be the case and to use combination therapy as necessary. Since so few patients have osteosarcoma, there are also very few clinical trials that have been able to effectively assess the utility of this combination therapy. Thus, it is important for the doctors to determine how to treat each patient on a case by case basis. It is important for doctors to consider this and many other problems in the treatment of the disease.

Researchers have found that many people respond to the drugs differently. In many cancer fields, researchers are conducting work to determine how specific patients will respond based on their individual genetic identity. However, while research is being conducted among osteosarcoma patients, it is important to consider that comprehensive data could only be collected over a long period of time because only about 400 patients are diagnosed with the illness each year. Therefore, it is necessary for researchers to do their best with what little information they have to work towards developing curative measures for the patients. One important prognostic biomarker is HER2, as this genetic information can be used to determine the severity of patient outcome (Marina et al., 2004). Researchers are currently working towards developing an understanding of how this genetic data could be used to create therapy for cancer patients that would result in a better outcome. Since there are very few patients with the illness, many of the studies that have been conducted to find more information on this topic have been generally unsuccessful. However, it is important to consider that as technology improves, it may be possible for researchers to refine these methods and techniques in order to find a reasonable therapeutic answer to these problems posed.

In conclusion, it is important for researchers to understand that a lot more work needs to be done to treat osteosarcoma. The disease itself is hard to detect, rare, and is associated with many of the same problems as conventional cancer treatment. Therefore, it is important for doctors to consider how they could treat the disease in light of the difficulties related to it. While knowledge of biomarkers and chemotherapy drugs contribute to the understanding of the disease, there is a significant need for improvement.

The definitions of five medical terms used in this discussion are below:

• Bio – prefix meaning pertaining to life
• Marker – root meaning indicator
• Osteo – prefix meaning of the bone
• Sarcoma – root meaning a tumor of the connective tissue
• Meta – prefix meaning out or beyond
• Stasis – root meaning period of inactivity
• Chemo – prefix meaning chemical
• Therapy – root meaning treatment
• Amputate – root meaning to cut off
• Ation – suffix meaning the process of

References

Berman SD, Calo E, Landman AS, et al. Metastatic osteosarcoma induced by inactivation of Rb and p53 in the osteoblast lineage. (2008). Proc Natl Acad Sci, 105: 11851–11856.

Janeway K, Gorlick R, Bernstein M. Osteosarcoma. In: OrkinS, FisherD, LookA, LuxS, Ginsburg D, NathanD, eds. Oncology of Infancy and Childhood. (2009). Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier.

Marina N, Gebhardt M, Teot L, Gorlick R. (2004). Biology and therapeutic advances for pediatric osteosarcoma. Oncologist, 9: 422–441.