How to detect osteosarcoma

Everyone is afraid of tumors, and osteosarcoma is one of them. It is very harmful to us. Many patients with osteosarcoma don’t know how to check it. I have collected a lot of information. Now let’s learn about how to check osteosarcoma together!

Osteosarcoma can be diagnosed in the following ways:

1. Gross examination: Osteosarcoma tissue is hard and gritty, with a pink or grayish-white cross section that resembles rotten fish. Osteogenic osteosarcoma is yellowish-white and hard, chondrogenic osteosarcoma is grayish-blue, shiny, tough, and fibrogenic osteosarcoma is dark red or grayish-yellow and soft. Osteosarcoma tissue with heavy bleeding is purple-red with cystic changes in the middle and mixed with necrotic areas.

2. Microscopic examination: The histological feature is that tumor cells directly form bones and produce bone matrix. Under the microscope, there are polymorphic matrix, irregular or spindle-shaped tumor cells, large nuclei, dark staining, abnormal cell nuclear division images, etc. If the tissue specimen contains a large amount of sarcoma-like matrix, it is not difficult to distinguish between tumor bone and bone-like tissue, but in some tissue sections, tumor bone-like tissue cannot be seen, only collagen surrounds tumor cells, and only the interstitium of cells can be seen in inactive tumor growth, and some are mainly new cartilage and atypical prismatic cells.

The main method for diagnosing osteosarcoma is to combine pathological findings with clinical and imaging examinations. Elevated serum alkaline phosphatase is the only important laboratory test result for osteosarcoma.

3. X-ray examination: It is of great value in the diagnosis of osteosarcoma. Tumor bone formation is often seen, which appears as cloud-like or plaque-like shadows with increased density. This type of case is called sclerotic osteosarcoma. A few cases are osteolytic, and pathologically they are mainly chondroblastic and fibroblastic types with bone destruction as the main feature. X-rays show worm-eaten or large-scale bone destruction with blurred boundaries. In addition, if Codman triangles or solar radiation shadows are found on X-rays, it is very helpful for the diagnosis of osteosarcoma.

4. Microscopic examination: well-differentiated tumor cells, with obvious tumor bone formation. Between the tumor trabeculae is a more actively proliferating fibrous tissue, with no obvious anaplasia, and morphologically similar to well-differentiated fibrosarcoma. A few poorly differentiated cortical osteosarcomas have less bone formation, similar to ordinary osteosarcomas.