While cancers such as breast, lung and prostate are often dominated by public health issues, there is a much less known form but there is equally aggressive – sarcoma.
It affects thousands of people throughout the UK annually and often escapes from titles.
Despite relative anonymity, Sarcoma, as one of the most challenging cancers for diagnosis and treatment, creates a significant threat to those who affect.
As the month approaches the Sarcoma’s awareness in July, the focus on the disease is ignored.
Helen Estrading, the head of the professional health care career in Sarrakum, England, is trying to clarify the sarcoma, why public awareness is very low, and the basic primary symptoms are often neglected.
What is the sarcoma?
According to the Sarcoma UK website, sarcoma is a type of cancer that can appear anywhere in the body and 15 people are diagnosed in the UK every day.
“In terms of breast cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer, it is very clear where they came from, while the word Sarcomas really doesn’t tell you anything.” “The sarcom is the cancer of bits and pieces that put us together, such as nerves, bones, blood vessels and fat cells.”
There are many different sarcaches of sarcoma, but they are generally grouped into two main categories.
Straradling explains: “The main types of bone sarcom and sarcoma are soft tissue.” “The most common soft tissue sarcoma is GISTS (gastrointestinal stroma tumors), liposarcom and lomiosarcom, and in bone sarcomes, those we hear most are osteoporosis and ewing sarcom.”
Why have many people never heard of sarcoma?
“I think everything comes to being rare,” says Stradling. ” “We recognize about 5,300 sarcoma each year in the UK, so it is unlikely that when one gets the sarcoma recognition that they know the other person who has one,” he said.
“This is also not the type of cancer that you see often speaks in the media. Many people who receive sarcoma’s diagnosis have not already heard of sarcoma.”
What are the symptoms?
“The main sign of soft tissue sarcoma is the mass you see is changing or growing.” “Benign masses are really common, but everyone who has a piece of soft tissue everywhere in the body that is growing and changing their needs to examine it.”
However, the main symptoms of bone sarcoma are bone pain or swelling that worsen at night.
“There are many reasons for joint and bone pain, but if you have bone pain that you can’t get any damage, it does not relieve itself with painkillers or things like this and wakes your pain at night, this is a red flag.”
However, the sarcoma is more difficult to identify.
“The GISTS is a little more difficult because you can hardly see something from them,” says Stradling. “It is likely that with delicate symptoms such as bloating or blood in the vomiting or stool,” he said.
“If you have acquired these symptoms and return to you from health care professionals you see, we ask you to continue. If you are really worried about being a sarcoma, mention this word in a professional to be what they can consider or start researching.”
How is it diagnosed?
“This usually starts with a general physiotherapist or a nurse and a lot of time, and it will take a long time for a soft tissue mass to grow or bone pain,” says Strading.
“With soft tissue sarcoms, we tend to start with ultrasound and start with X -ray bone sarcom,” he said.
“If there is a concern that something may be worse, the patient has an MRI scan. But most importantly, when the MRI scan is done, we have to get a biopsy, because despite many different subgroups, we need to know exactly which one we know that we know is the best treatment for you.”
Like most cancer forms, sarcoma can be found in different scores, and if they are earlier than you get, they are much easier to treat.
“The sooner we can improve these diagnoses,” says Stradling. ” “We know that patients see specialized teams and start treating them as soon as we can make a positive difference to the results.”
How is it treated?
The main treatment of sarcoma, both soft tissue and bone sarcoma, is surgery. According to the Sarcoma UK website, the purpose of removing the tumor with a healthy tissue margin is to minimize the risk of recurrence.
“We really need to get them enough to have surgery that we do not want to leave anyone with a restrictive movement or we can’t do whatever they want,” says Stradling. “We want to prevent the stage where the tumors have already expanded, because then the treatments we have taken are limited.”
The sarcoma can also be treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy often along with surgery.
“We use chemotherapy and radiotherapy for a number of sarcoma, but in many cases we do not use them until they have not expanded before, because we know that they are not as effective as we like,” says Stradling. “However, this is slightly different from younger people who obtain bone sarcoma because they tend to start with chemotherapy as a treatment. In most cases, surgery is the first thing to happen.”
Sarcoma UK has a free, independent and confidential support line. Call 0808 801 0401 at any time between 10am and 3pm on Monday to Friday.
