Health encyclopaedia

Health encyclopaedia - Alphabetical Topic List

Causes of Cancer of the bone

Although doctors are not sure what causes primary bone cancer, there are several factors that seem to make it more likely:

• Genetic links – in some cases, people inherit a gene that seems to make them more likely to develop osteosarcoma. The same gene is also linked to a cancer of the eye that occurs in children, called retinoblastoma.
• Radiotherapy treatment for another another cancer – particularly if this treatment occurred at an early age, or was in particularly high doses.
• Previous damage or injury to a bone seems to make it slightly more likely that a cancer will develop in the bone.
• Other diseases of the bone such as Paget’s disease and osteochondroma – some people with these benign (non-cancerous) conditions are more likely to develop primary bone cancer.
• Li-Fraumeni syndrome – people with this rare genetic syndrome are more likely to develop certain cancers including bone cancer.

Osteosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma both occur mainly in young people, so they may be linked to changes in the bone as it is growing.

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