Do you know the symptoms of metastatic bone tumor?

There are many types of bone tumors, among which metastatic bone tumor is the most common one. This disease has a strange onset and makes many patients feel unbearable pain. In order to help you better understand this disease, the symptoms of metastatic bone tumor are introduced to you below.

Symptoms of metastatic bone tumors:

(1) Pain: It is the most common symptom, accounting for about 70%. The onset of pain can be early or late, and the nature of the pain can be mild or severe. The course of the disease is generally long. The degree of pain varies. In the early stage, the pain is mild and intermittent, and gradually becomes continuous. Severe cases are easy to attract attention, while mild cases are often ignored. Those located in the spine may manifest as pain in the waist, chest and back, rib chest, and neck. Those in the thoracic spine are often accompanied by unilateral or bilateral intercostal neuralgia. Those in the lumbar spine may sometimes manifest as abdominal pain. The characteristics of pain are that it often changes, immobilization is often ineffective, the degree of pain becomes more and more severe, and it progresses rapidly. Those located in the pelvis are often accompanied by pain in the hip joint and medial thigh; those located in the upper end of the femur and the upper end of the humerus are often accompanied by joint dysfunction.

(2) Swelling and lumps: In the early stage of deep bone metastasis, it is often difficult to find lumps, and only local pain is reflected. In superficial cases, swelling and lumps can be seen in some cases, accounting for about 5%, so it is very rare for patients to seek medical treatment due to lumps. Tumors near joints can cause joint dysfunction. When the tumor grows near important nerves, there may be more or less compression symptoms, numbness, muscle weakness or atrophy. In many cases, bone lesions are not discovered until pathological fractures occur, so special attention should be paid.

(3) Compression symptoms: Spinal metastatic tumors often quickly cause compression symptoms of the spinal cord, cauda equina, or nerve roots, radicular neuralgia, decreased sensation, weakened muscle strength, and even paralysis, often accompanied by sphincter dysfunction. About 2% of patients have paralysis as the first symptom, and almost 50% of patients are hospitalized due to paralysis. Those in the pelvis may cause compression symptoms of the rectum and bladder, resulting in urinary and bowel dysfunction. Those in the limbs may also cause compression symptoms of blood vessels and nerve trunks.

(4) Pathological fracture: This is often one of the main symptoms of metastatic bone tumors. Fractures occur with minor trauma or without any cause. The incidence is highest in the lower limbs. Once a pathological fracture occurs, the pain worsens and the swelling is obvious. If it occurs in the spine, paralysis will occur quickly.

(5) Systemic symptoms: Patients with symptoms of primary cancer often have poor general condition, often with anemia, weight loss, low fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, etc. Patients without primary cancer symptoms often have good general condition, and some patients are like normal people, but soon develop systemic symptoms.

These are the symptoms of metastatic bone tumors. I believe that after reading the above introduction, you will have a certain understanding of metastatic bone tumors. If you have other questions, please consult an online expert.