What is a living tumour?

Chordoma is a tumor that develops from remnants of the spinal cord. Tumors can appear at any position of the spinal axis, mainly at the two ends, which are the sloping surfaces of the scapula and the sacrum.
Live myeloma is a rare disease, with an incidence of about 1 in 2,000,000 people. The disease mainly occurs in adults, accounting for only about 0.2% of tumors in the central nervous system, 2-4% of primary bone tumors, the male/female ratio is 2/1. The disease is common at any age, but most patients are diagnosed between the ages of 40 and 60.

Live myeloma is classified as a low-grade malignancy because the tumors are usually slow-growing, and mainly develop locally invasive, with a low metastasis rate of only 5-20%. However, raw primary tumors have a very high recurrence rate, up to 85%, because it is difficult to remove the entire tumor.
However, because the tumor is located near important areas such as the brain and spinal cord, if not detected and treated carefully, it can leave dangerous complications.
Chordomas grow slowly, they destroy local bone, spread to surrounding tissues. Tumors may metastasize to the lymph nodes, bones, lungs, or liver.

While in the womb, the baby will have a thin cord called the notochord running down the spine. This cord helps to support the bones of the spine as they grow and will disappear before the baby is born. However, in a small number of people, some cord cells remain in their spine and skull.
Doctors think that chordoma is caused by a change in the gene that carries the instructions to make a protein that helps the spine form. This change causes the remaining spinal cord cells in the brain or spinal cord to divide too quickly to form a tumor.

Symptoms of myeloma are often vague and easily confused with many other diseases. Symptoms also depend on the location of the tumor.
In case the tumor is located on the sloping face of the bone (intracranial), the patient may have the following symptoms: Double vision (double vision) Abnormal eye movements Headache Loss of sensation and facial movement Changes voice Neck pain Swallowing disorder Where the tumor is located on the spine, the patient may have the following symptoms: Pain in the affected area such as the neck, back or tailbone Arm or leg pain Weakness or numbness Disorder bladder and bowel Some laboratory tests may be ordered by the doctor to confirm the diagnosis as well as determine the size of the tumor if present, such as:
X-ray CT scan MRI Biopsy : to confirm for sure whether the tumor is still alive or not.

Up until now, surgery is still the mainstay of treatment for myeloma. Other treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation have little effect. In addition, the treatment depends on the specific condition of the patient such as:
Age, health of the patient Tumor location Tumor size Due to slow-growing myeloma, vague clinical symptoms and easily confused with other diseases, so patients are often diagnosed when the tumor is large, surgical treatment is difficult, prone to accidents and complications.
Surgery to treat live tumours is very complicated, requiring the operator to have experience and high technique. Usually, when surgically removing a tumor, the doctor will try to remove all of the tumor and some surrounding tissue to prevent it from coming back. But sometimes it's not possible to remove the entire tumor, because it can affect normal cells in the patient's brain or spine. Then it should be combined with radiation therapy to remove the remaining tumor cells, reducing the risk of disease recurrence.
Today, with the rapid development of high-tech equipment such as nerve positioning system, microsurgery glasses, endoscope, surgery for chordoma in the sphenoid sinus - skull base has made great progress. step. This technique is indicated for vertebral tumors located in the sphenoid sinus, pituitary fossa, above the nest, next to the saddle, but the tumor does not extend beyond the anterior part of the bony surface. This technique is contraindicated in cases of limited access such as too narrow sphenoid sinus. After the surgery, the patient needs to be closely and long-term monitoring because the recurrence rate of the raw tumour is very high.
Thus, squamous cell tumor is a rare, slow-growing, and low-grade central nervous system tumor. However, if the patient is not diagnosed correctly and in time, the tumor grows large, causing unpredictable complications.
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Reference source: webmd.com