Another goal is decreasing time spent in the hospital. For leukemia patients, hospital admission is usually required only for the first chemotherapy treatment. Later treatments are generally given on an outpatient basis. In treating bone tumors, for example, the highest cure rates are achieved through the use of intensive chemotherapy, surgery and sometimes radiation. The chemotherapy aims to shrink the tumor, in many cases allowing for limb-salvaging procedures rather than outright amputation.
Bone cancer strikes more frequently in childhood and adolescence than adulthood.
Some 50 percent of these tumors affect the area of the knee. In 1996 the teenager noticed pain and swelling in his left knee while away at summer camp. He assumed it was caused by playing too much tennis, but saw the camp doctor anyway. By the end of the summer, there was a grapefruit-sized lump in Keith's lower thigh, just above the knee. A biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.