Sarcoma is a type of cancer that can occur in various locations in your body.
Sarcoma is the general term for a broad group of cancers that begin in the bones and in the soft (also called connective) tissues (soft tissue sarcoma). Soft tissue sarcoma forms in the tissues that connect, support and surround other body structures. This includes muscle, fat, blood vessels, nerves, tendons and the lining of your joints.
Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of sarcoma include:
- A lump that can be felt through the skin that may or may not be painful
- Bone pain
- A broken bone that happens unexpectedly, such as with a minor injury or no injury at all
- Abdominal pain
- Weight loss
Causes
It’s not clear what causes most sarcomas.
In general, cancer forms when changes (mutations) happen in the DNA within cells. The DNA inside a cell is packaged into a large number of individual genes, each of which contains a set of instructions telling the cell what functions to perform, as well as how to grow and divide.
Mutations might tell cells to grow and divide uncontrollably and to continue living when normal cells would die. If this happens, the accumulating abnormal cells can form a tumor. Cells can break away and spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body.
Risk Factors
Factors that can increase the risk of sarcoma include:
- Inherited syndromes. Some syndromes that increase the risk of cancer can be passed from parents to children. Examples of syndromes that increase the risk of sarcoma include familial retinoblastoma and neurofibromatosis type 1.
- Radiation therapy for cancer. Radiation treatment for cancer increases the risk of developing sarcoma later.
- Chronic swelling (lymphedema). Lymphedema is swelling caused by a backup of lymph fluid that occurs when the lymphatic system is blocked or damaged. It increases the risk of a type of sarcoma called angiosarcoma.
- Exposure to chemicals. Certain chemicals, such as some industrial chemicals and herbicides, can increase the risk of sarcoma that affects the liver.
- Exposure to viruses. The virus called human herpesvirus 8 can increase the risk of a type of sarcoma called Kaposi’s sarcoma in people with weakened immune systems.
Treatment
Sarcoma is usually treated with surgery to remove the cancer. Other treatments might be used before or after surgery. Which treatments are best for you will depend on the type of sarcoma, its location, how aggressive the cells are and whether cancer has spread to other parts of your body.
Treatment for sarcoma might involve:
Surgery. The goal of surgery for sarcoma is to remove all of the cancer cells. Sometimes it’s necessary to amputate an arm or leg to remove all of the cancer, but surgeons try to preserve limb function when possible. Sometimes all of the cancer can’t be removed without hurting important structures, such as nerves or organs. In these situations, the surgeons work to remove as much of the sarcoma as possible.
Radiation therapy. Radiation therapy uses high-powered energy beams, such as X-rays and protons, to kill cancer cells. The radiation can come from a machine that moves around your body directing the beams of energy (external beam radiation). Or the radiation might be placed in your body temporarily (brachytherapy). Sometimes radiation is done during an operation to remove the cancer (intraoperative radiation).
Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses chemicals to kill cancer cells. Some types of sarcoma are more likely to respond to chemotherapy treatment than others.
Targeted therapy. Targeted therapy is a drug treatment that uses medicines that attack specific weaknesses in cancer cells. Your doctor may have your sarcoma cells tested to see if they are likely to respond to targeted therapy drugs.
Immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a drug treatment that uses your immune system to fight cancer. Your body’s disease-fighting immune system may not attack your cancer because the cancer cells produce proteins that blind the immune system cells. Immunotherapy drugs work by interfering with that process.
Ablation therapy. Ablation therapy treatments destroy cancer cells by applying electricity to heat the cells, very cold liquid to freeze the cells or high-frequency ultrasound waves to damage the cells.
Diagnosis of Sarcoma
A person who is suspected of sarcoma may be required to undergo any or all of the tests described below for confirming the diagnosis.
- Biopsy: For biopsy, samples of the suspected tumors are taken through an excisional method where the entire mass is taken out and given for microscopic study.
- Imaging tests: One or more of the various imaging tests like ultrasound scan, CT scan, MRI scan, etc. will be conducted to finalize the diagnosis of sarcoma.
- Bone scan: A person suspected of osteosarcoma will be required to undergo a bone scan for finalizing the diagnostic procedure.
Knowledge Is Cure
The food you eat, the air you breathe, how happy or sad you are, the environment you live in – all or any of such aspects influence your recovery process. However, most of all, it is important that you understand how cancer develops to get rid of the deadly disease
Dynamic Science – A perspective apart
Today known as the Science of New Generation and third millennium, Dynamic Science incorporates dynamic energy level entities like mind, vital force (soul) into the present day materialistic science thereby changing its perspective from a materialistic worldview into a dynamic or spiritual philosophically driven one. By understanding the relationship of the body with dynamic energy level entities, this new science ventures to explain the hitherto baffling phenomena except the origin of the universe.
When such an approach gets applied to medicine and cure, Dynamic Science presents a strong critique of adhering to Modern Medicine alone primarily because modern medicine draws upon the materialistic view of Science. Only tangible and perceptible entities exist in its microscopic, narrow world of scrutiny. It goes without saying that it takes a complete science to prescribe a system of recovery or cure which is complete.
How does one’s DNA or RNA relate to the mind and the vital force?
A revelation which is all set to break new grounds in the history of science and research. Though the relationship between body, mind and soul was a concept which existed even in the ancient times, the nature of the relationship has never been scientifically explained till now. Dynamic Science opens up to offer a fool-proof description of the same.
Mutation and Epigenetics
An eye-opener to the cause, symptoms, occurrence and development of several diseases, especially cancer, these hypotheses explain the mechanism of mutations and epigenetic changes and also guides the curing process.
Cancer – Cause, Growth and Cure
A combined application of the above mentioned hypotheses, this provides an explicit, comprehensive answer to questions which have been baffling mankind – what is cancer, how does it develop and how can it be cured. Equipping oneself with this billion dollar information alone can act as one of the most potent prevention and cure for the disease. The hypotheses also explain why more women are afflicted with cancer particularly at the female specific organs like Breast, Uterus and Ovaries.
Growth, Death and Long-Life
An insightful hypothesis on aging, health, life and death – topics of perpetual debate ever since the origin of thinking!
HOMOPATHIC TREATMENT
- Calcarea flour for breast cancer with hard and stony lumps
- Lapis albus for scirrhous and uterus malignancies with burning where oozing of fluid is black and putrid
- Silicea can be used as adjuvant to reduce cancer pain and also sarcoma with yellow and offensive discharge
- Hekla lava is a bone cancerous remedy
- Baryta carb for scattered lipomas
- Bryta iodium can cure ovarian cancer and mammae cancer with tuberculosis tinge
- Plumbum iodium in mastitis and induration of breast
- Bromine is a remedy for mammae cancer
- Phosphorus is used for cancer with bleeding tendency
- Iodium can be used for uterus cancers
- Cicuta virosa for epithelial cancer
- Kali sulph for facial epithelial cancer
- Cedron can be used to reduce the lancinating pains of cancer
