Bone and Soft Tissue Oncology Program

Osteosarcoma

Stages

If a patient is diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the doctor will do more tests to find out if cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body. This process is called staging and is used to help the doctor plan treatment.

At present, there is no staging system for osteosarcoma. Instead, most patients are grouped based on whether cancer is found in only one part of the body (localized disease) or has spread from one part of the body to another (metastatic disease).

The following groups are used for osteosarcoma:

Localized: The cancer cells have not spread beyond the bone or nearby tissue in which the cancer began. In young patients most tumors occur around the knee.
Metastatic: The cancer cells have spread from the bone in which the cancer began to other parts of the body. The cancer most often spreads to the lungs. It may also spread to other bones.
Recurrent: The cancer has come back (recurred) after it has been treated. It may come back in the tissues where it first started or it may come back in another part of the body.

This page was last updated on: March 4, 2008.

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