Video Transcript:
Good morning, I’m Dr. Breelyn Wilky from the sarcoma program at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
Sarcomas are actually a group of different cancers over a hundred different cancers of the bone and soft tissue that collectively only make up about 1% of all adult cancers and 15% of pediatric cancers. They tend to present as soft tissue or a mass that might be in a bone, so usually in an arm or a leg, but really can be anywhere in the body from head-to-toe.
Sarcomas can have different types of symptoms depending on where in the body they’re located. It could be a painless lump in an arm or a leg or patients could present with severe pain or even bleeding if it happens to involve the gastrointestinal organs. It’s really variable depending on where their sarcoma might be found.
The one thing that can be really confusing about sarcomas is that there’s a lot of people that have a little lump or a bump somewhere in their bodies and so now that I’ve told you about sarcoma you may be completely paranoid and start finding any lumps and bumps and being worried that you might have this type of cancer. In reality, if your mass if you have a lump or a bump and it’s growing becoming more painful or bigger than the size of a golf ball that’s generally the rule to seek medical evaluation.
