Question about Facial Osteosarcoma?

Question

A friend of mine has told me that her 20 year old niece has osteosarcoma, it is in her cheek bone, jaw and over her nose and eye socket on the left side of her face. I know that this type of cancer is very rare and once past stage one, gets harder to treat. She only just found out and is getting a bone scraping done and sending it somewhere, due to it's rarity and us being in New Zealand.
The doctor has said her cancer is only six weeks growth, which is such a short time and i worry for her.
 Can anyone who knows more tell me what her chances are of of metastasizing to her brain and spine, which is a concern and whether she will live through this? 
Please don't ask me to consult her doc because i don't know her, i'm asking a for her Aunt, who is a friend of mine. It is very sad and i hope our NZ doctors can her her beat it.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

My 2 year old son has Ewing sarcoma (which is more aggressive than osteo) also in the facial area (around the nose). Ewingssarcoma is very rare especially if it is in the Face, we live in the Netherlands and our doctor is consulting another doctor from hamburg Germany because they don't know a lot about the cancer either. They don't know how to remove it after the chemotherapy. We were also afraid of it metastasizing to our child's brain and spine but everything was fine thank god. The doctors believe my son had the cancer since he was born but it started growing in his nose 4 months ago that's when we saw it and went to the doctor. Our son is doing intensive chemo. We are doing the third round right now and we heard a couple of days ago that the chemo is helping and that the tumor is shrinking. we still need to do 3 more round of chemo and then a surgery and after that either radiation or more chemo. 
I understand how stressful it can be especially if you still dont know if its spread or not. It took the doctors 2 days to find out if it did spread, a lot fo photos and MRI's later we found out its good. Your doctor should definitely be taking pictures right now to make sure that it hasnt spread and start chemotherapy as soon as possible, because the cancer spreads so fast. 

If you have any questions please dont hesitate to contact me.

formerly_bob · Answer

No one can predict the outcome with much accuracy.   In general, survival rate is 60%-80%.   The location of cancer might make it very difficult to treat.  The most effective treatment is removing the affected bone and that probably won't be an option.    She may  have to rely primarily on chemotherapy which has the least predictable outcome of all the potential treatments.  Radiation may also be an option and it is generally more effective than chemotherapy, but its difficult to use on cancers that have spread over a wide area.

Question about Facial Osteosarcoma?

2 Answers