Medical expert of the article
New publications
Bone tumors in children: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 20.11.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Bone tumors account for 5-9% of all malignant neoplasms of childhood.
Histologically, bones consist of several types of tissues: bone, cartilaginous, fibrous and hematopoietic. Accordingly, bone tumors can have a different origin and differ in a significant variety.
Classification of bone tumors in children
Below is a modern histological classification. It covers all benign and malignant bone tumors in children and adults.
Bone-forming tumors.
- Benign:
- osteoma;
- osteoid-osteoma and osteoblastoma.
- Intermediate:
- aggressive osteoblastoma.
- Malignant:
- osteosarcoma.
Cartilaginous.
- Benign:
- chondroma;
- an endochondroma;
- osteochondroma;
- chondroblastoma;
- chondromixoid fibroid.
- Malignant:
- chondrosarcoma
- Giant cell (osteoclastoma).
- Circle cell tumors.
- Ewing's sarcoma.
- Primitive neuroectodermal tumor.
- Malignant bone lymphoma.
- Vascular tumors.
- Other connective tissue tumors.
- Other tumors.
- Tumor-like processes.
- The solitary bone cyst.
- Aneurysmal bone cyst.
- Metaphyseal fibrous defect.
- Eosinophilic granuloma.
- Fibrous dysplasia.
- A brown tumor with hyperparathyroidism.
- Gigantocellular (reparative) granuloma.
The biology of bone tumors has characteristic features that are taken into account when staging and choosing the tactics of treatment.
Spindle-shaped cell sarcomas form solid structures with citriptugal growth. Peripheral departments are the most immature part of these tumors. Tumor cells and components of surrounding tissues can form a pseudocapsule. An important sign of malignancy is the ability of tumor cells to penetrate through the pseudocapsule and form new foci in the surrounding tissues. High-grade sarcomas can form foci that are not associated with the underlying tumor.
There are three ways of local growth of bone tumors:
- growth with compression of normal tissue;
- direct destruction of normal tissue;
- bone resorption by reactive osteoclasts.
To the most frequent malignant tumors of bones is attributed to osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma.