Rib cancer is a malignancy that develops in bone tissue. Arcuate bones connected to the sternum and vertebrae are the skeleton for organs located in the chest.
Causes
In the vast majority of cases, rib cancer develops for the following reasons:
- Pretumor bone disease: for example, fibrous dysplasia or Paget's disease.
- Heredity, however, the factor is not proven, according to doctors, it is secondary.
- Radioactive radiation - even if it was performed to treat benign tumors. As a result of such actions, a new focus may arise, which can appear several years after irradiation.
- Genetic abnormalities - a connection has been established between the development of rib cancer and damage to some chromosomes. The exact cause of such changes has not been identified, but, most likely, they are the result of inferior intrauterine development.
- The effect of carcinogens - interacting with DNA, various kinds of chemicals contribute to the transition of cells from healthy to cancerous.
Basically, the development of cancer occurs due to insufficient functioning of the immune system, and various injuries that are a catalyst for the progression of the cancer state are of no small importance. In children, the incidence of the disease is associated with their accelerated growth and development.
Signs and Symptoms
Rib cancer is a malignant tissue lesion characterized by atypical and infiltrative growth of cancer cells. Cancer is found mainly in children and men. The danger lies in the proximity of organs that are very important for health, since the tumor can sweep them quite quickly.
The main manifestation and symptom of rib cancer is called pain in the chest. In the first stage, the pain may not bother at all or be slight. After some time, the pain becomes intense, brings discomfort. Bone neoplasms, such as Ewing's sarcoma, are also noted. With osteosarcoma, painful sensations cannot be removed with analgesics, and often they become quite prolonged.
Sometimes pain with cancer in the tissues of the ribs is felt when inhaling, especially at night. Visible malignancy can be viewed very rarely, and with the growth of the tumor deep into the sternum, it may not be at all. In some cases, the doctor feels a loose, soft seal. If the cancer progresses, and the tumor becomes larger, the vascular network protrudes, the skin is stretched, swollen and reddened.
Some varieties of sarcomas (sturgeon or fibrosarcoma) cause pain when pressed, while other varieties will develop painlessly. Signs of rib cancer during intoxication appear at the last stage:
- temperature rises;
- anemia is increasing;
- the patient feels general weakness.
If the autonomic nervous system is involved in the process, the patient develops neurological disorders:
- paranoia;
- excessive agitation, etc.
If the cancer affects the lungs, difficulty breathing, coughing, and also in severe cases, hemoptysis. With timely detection and proper, effective treatment in people with rib cancer, the chances of a cure are quite favorable.
Operation
Quite often, people turn to the clinic complaining of various tumor diseases, one of which is rib cancer. A photo of an operation called laparoscopy is above.
These are malignant formations that arise from the cellular structure of the bone tissue of the ribs. The disease occurs in people of different ages, and it manifests itself in two types - primary or secondary.
The latter occur during the germination of formations localized in the soft tissues of bones, or the formation of secondary foci from internal organs located near the affected section. Primary formations, known in medical terminology as sarcoma, develop very quickly, so the prognosis for patients with a similar diagnosis is disappointing. The fact is that at the initial stage of the disease, the symptoms appear very weakly, but in some cases it still turns out to find a tumor and start treatment on time. The main method of treatment of such malignant tumors is surgical intervention, which involves the removal of a cancerous tumor by surgery.
With rib cancer, doctors often use a combined treatment. In addition to extensive surgery, radiation or chemotherapy is used. In most cases, with malignant tumors in the late stages and metastases in the ribs with cancer, preliminary and postoperative chemotherapy is performed.
In the first case, therapy consists in preventing inflammatory processes and reducing the size of the sarcoma. This greatly simplifies the further treatment process with surgical intervention, thereby increasing the final result of the healing process.
Since surgical intervention is the main treatment for sarcoma, for the best effect, actions should be total or subtotal. In some cases, it is required to stop several bones and the sternum. In such cases, the most difficult is the restoration of the thoracic region, which performs the protective function of internal organs. If the bones are not properly spliced, problems may arise regarding their operation.
The process of surgery to restore the chest includes the following actions:
- pleural cavity sealing;
- reconstruction of bone elements of the thoracic region;
- saving the physiological size of nearby cavities;
- restoration of the epidermal cover and soft tissues.
Sometimes, removal of cancerous tumors requires natural or artificial implants. For the regeneration of soft tissues, samples of the muscles of the dorsal, thoracic, or abdominal regions act as samples. To eliminate ruptures of the pleural cavity, the dura mater is used. The most difficult part in the recovery process with extensive sarcoma is the reconstruction of the removed ribs.
After removing the tumor, doctors conduct a morphological examination of the stopped tissues in order to understand the degree of cardinality of the surgical intervention. If there are no tumor cells along the edges of the resection, then the operation can be considered successful. This method allows you to reduce the chance of recurrence of a disease for a long period. However, in most cases, it is not possible to completely stop the tumor, which threatens with relapse or metastases.
As for radiation therapy, this method is not always suitable for the treatment of breast cancer, however, in difficult situations, radiation helps to lower the pain threshold and improve the general condition of the patient. With radiosensitive formations, such as Ewing's tumor, this method of treatment is the main one, in this case, a dosage of 60 to 65 grams is used. When exposed to the cell structure of the sarcoma by ionizing radiation, the cancer cells die. Radiation therapy for patients is used before and after surgery, and in some cases it is combined with chemotherapy.
Medications for surgery
In surgical operations on malignant tumors, medications are used. For each case, medications are selected individually. Medicines used for cancerous tumors:
- Vincristine;
- Methotrexate
- Cyclophosphamide;
- "Cisplatin";
- Doxorubicin;
- "Ifosfamide".
Before surgery, the patient is anesthetized, followed by a puncture of the pleural cavity. If the affected area contains pus, it is necessary to stop the ribs. The incision for access to the cancerous tumor is carried out along the rib in the center of its outer side. Then along its entire length with the help of a scalpel, an incision is made in the periosteum of the rib, two transverse incisions are added along its edges.
The surgeon and his assistants must be in sterile gloves, and the instrument necessary for the operation must be prepared and sterilized in advance.
Painkillers
In the treatment of cancer, attention is paid not only to the effect on the neoplasm itself, but also to improving the quality of life of the patient, in particular, the fight against regular pain. Pain is caused by an increase in the tumor, but pain can be a secondary result of certain cancer medications.
The selection of painkillers depends on the stage of the disease. WHO has created a three-step regimen, which implies a transition from non-narcotic analgesics to weak opiates, and then to strong opiates. This model makes it possible to achieve improvement in 9 out of 10 patients.
Adjuvant drugs
Medicines are not considered painkillers in the strict sense of the word, but they reduce the side effects of powerful opioids and increase their sedative effect (for example, “Clonidine”). Antidepressants also give concrete results.
Non-narcotic analgesics
This is the first stage in the removal of pain in oncology. For these purposes, paracetamol-based substances are used, as well as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ("Ibuprofen").
Weak opiates. These funds include Codeine, Tramadol and others. These are potent substances, but, nevertheless, are distinguished by tolerance. They have a particularly noticeable result when combined with non-narcotic analgesics.
Strong opiates
In cases where the pain becomes very powerful and other drugs cannot help, the doctor prescribes strong opiates based on morphine, fentanyl, etc. They directly affect the central nervous system, suppressing nerve impulses.
Enzymes
Enzymes include active protein combinations that are ready to break down the amino acids needed to grow tumor cells. Arginase, asparginase, and certain other enzymes are used to cure tumors. The effectiveness of this type of therapy is in question, since resistance is incredibly fast: the human immune system begins to form antibodies to them. But studies show that enzyme therapy significantly mitigates the effects of chemotherapy results.
Antiviral
Certain types of cancer develop as a result of the activity of microbes (for example, human papillomavirus). In addition, an organism exhausted by aggressive chemotherapy is sometimes not able to independently protect itself from viral infections. For this reason, antiviral medicines, in particular, tilorone-based substances and their analogues, are also used in the complex treatment of cancer.
Hormone therapy
With the cure of rib cancer, the use of hormonal substances brings good results. They are more effective in treating hormone-dependent tumors. Estrogen-containing substances are prescribed to suppress androgens, and androgen-containing substances, on the contrary, destroy the release of estrogen. Despite the effectiveness, hormonal substances have a large number of disadvantages - they are ready to reduce the effect of chemotherapeutic substances, with long-term cure, many patients develop resistance to such drugs.
Cancer prevention
Timely diagnosis and timely treatment of rib cancer is the key to a normal healthy life. It is dangerous because in the initial stages it is asymptomatic and has a large number of varieties. Doctors are unanimous in the opinion that there are no certain manipulations to prevent rib cancer. Most often, children aged 3 to 15 years are affected by this disease, so parents should pay close attention to the health of the child if one of the relatives was exposed to any disease related to oncology, since then the child will be at risk.
Oncological diseases associated with bone cancer are insidious in that even with a visible improvement in the state of health and indicators of all tests, the disease can make itself felt at any moment and progress faster than before.
To prevent the onset and recurrence of rib cancer :
- undergo a full examination at least once every six months;
- take tests for the detection of malignant cells (for those at risk) - once every 3 months;
- Responsibly approach treatment, not skipping any procedures if they already have rib cancer.