What you didn't know about Bone Cancer: The facts

Happy Bone cancer awareness week! This week we'll be blogging each day to teach you more about bone cancer and more abo why we are doing the 3000 mile challenge for BCRT! 

You keep hearing us talking about Bone Cancer, but there's a lot about the cancer that you probably don't know... 

The "did you know?" Stuff...

• There are a number of types of bone cancer; osteosarcoma, ewings sarcoma and chondrosarcoma. 
• It's mostly common in children/teenagers and the elderly 
• The main symptom is bone pain which may come and go at first then become more persistent 
• Although it can appear in any bone in the body, it's most common in the limbs 
• Around 400 people are diagnosed with Bone cancer a year in the UK (less than 100 are diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, the cancer Thomas and Caroline had... considering they were in the same school, pretty scary huh!)
• The survival rate is the only survival rate out of the most common cancers which hasn't increased in the last 3 decades 
• It's a common cancer in dogs - particularly Great Danes due to their height! 
• Only 1 in 20 Doctors see a bone cancer case in their career 

The important stuff...

What causes Bone Cancer? 

• The cause of bone cancer has still not been defined however it's been said that everyone has cells in our bodies containing a structure inside called the nucleus, which is protected from the rest of the cell. The nucleus make up the DNA which are the genes in your body. Some genes act as ‘brakes’ on the cell division process in order to stop cells dividing too quickly. If damage occurs to these genes (eg, how Caroline fell off a skateboard ramp and landed on her wrist or how Thomas hurt his shoulder play fighting), it can mean that the brakes fail. This allows cells to divide when they shouldn’t, and causes cells to live longer than they should so they can divide more times. This can lead to cancer.

What treatments are best for Bone Cancer? 

• Chemo is the first port of call for Bone cancer as radio therapy can damage the DNA cells which can go on to damage the genes as discussed above 

Tomorrow we'll make you really think about what happens in the years after losing a sibling and the secret worries we have for the rest of our lives. All the info above and much much more can be found on the Bone Cancer Research Trust website!