Monday, December 1, 2008

More Sarcoma Stats - Villejuif

"L’ostéosarcome est la plus fréquente des tumeurs malignes prenant naissance dans l’os. Soixante pour cent de ces ostéosarcomes surviennent chez des enfants âgés de 10 à 20 ans."
Osteosarcoma is the most frequent bone cancer. 60% of these tumors occur in children aged between 10 to 20 years-old.

"Les tumeurs d’Ewing surviennent le plus souvent dans la seconde décennie de la vie ; elles peuvent se rencontrer avant 5 ans et sont rares après 30 ans. Il existe une prédominance masculine avec 1,2 à 1,5 garçons pour 1 fille."
Ewing's sarcoma occurs most often in the second decade of life; some have been diagnosed in patients under 5-years old and they are very rare in patients over 30. They seem to affect primarily boys, with 1.2 to 1.5 boys diagnosed for every girl.
(cause is unknown)

"Dix à 20 % de ces sarcomes restent inclassables. Les termes de sarcomes à cellules "rondes", à "petites cellules", à "cellules fusiformes" sont alors employés."
10 to 20% of sarcomas remain unclassified. They are typically referred to as round cell tumors, small cell tumors or spindle cell tumors.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most frequent of all sarcomas (60% of them). It occurs primarily among children under 5 or teenagers. There is no known cause.


Source: 


'Sarcomas is the most common hard tumor in young adults today'


Remember that cancer is not just carcinoma, or melanoma or leukemia/lymphoma. Carcinomas account for the overwhelming majority of the cancers and they arise in organs, such as the breast, liver, prostate, pancreas, etc...

The incidence rate of sarcoma decreases with age...it usually is the opposite for carcinomas.

Note that unlike other types of cancer, there is no known lifestyle or genetic cause to sarcoma (such as smoking, eating fatty food, lack of exercise). There are some environmental factors such as exposure to certain chemicals, or side effects of radiotherapy but they help explain only very few cases of sarcoma. So 'active prevention' by patients is not possible today - it might be if we can help researchers better understand what might trigger or highly correlate with the presence of the disease.