Bone tumors are rare disorders where a growth appears in the bone. Primary bone tumors are those that arise in the bone itself while secondary bone tumors are generally those that have spread to the bone from some other part of the body. Bone tumors may affect any bone and are most common around the knee joint. Bone tumors are common in children and adolescents. Another group that can be commonly affected by bone tumors is old age when tumor spreads from other parts of the body to the bone. Bone tumors present most commonly with pain. Sometimes swelling and stiffness may be present and pain may not be prominent. Bone tumors are often detected by xrays. Once this is done, the patients are referred to bone tumor specialists as it requires specialized care. Bone tumors almost always require a biopsy for confirming the diagnosis before treatment in initiated. The most common bone tumors that we deal with are

• Osteochondroma or exostosis
• Giant cell tumor
• Osteoid osteoma
• Enchondroma
• Osteosarcoma
• Ewing's sarcoma
• Chondrosarcoma
• Metastatic bone tumor

Bone tumors often require surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a combination of these for treatment. Apollo hospital is one of the centres of excellence for bone tumor treatment in Chennai as it has a team of orthopedic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and surgical oncologists who specialize in bone tumors. Dr Arun Kannan trained in bone tumor surgery at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA and performs tumor reconstructions with custom mega prosthesis, modular endo-prosthesis, and allograft reconstructions.

Total Femur Replacement for Tumor Reconstruction