As the name suggests it deals with both benign and malignant lesions of muscle and bone. Primary bone malignancy accounts for just 1% of all malignancies. Other lesions are in form of metastatic lesions and benign bone lesions which makes a large cohort of patients

The common primary bone malignancies are:

• Osteosarcoma
• Ewings sarcoma or peripheral neuroectodermal tumours
• Chondrosarcoma

A special note of multiple myeloma, although it arises in bone and presents with bony symptoms it is classified into haematological malignancies. Most of these are a result of mutation and no causative factor has been identified.

Age distribution:

• Osteosarcoma usually presents between 7-25 and after 60 years of age
• Ewings presents between 10-20 yrs of age
• Chondrosarcoma presents late in adulthood after 40 years of life.

Symptoms:

• Pain and swelling in the affected area
• Difficulty in functioning
• Pathological fractures
• Common sites for Metastasis- lungs, skeletal metastatic, abdominal organs
• Brain metastasis in case of Ewings.

The treatment involves surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The non -metastatic lesions have about 70 -80% of 5 year survival rate for osteosarcoma and Ewings sarcoma. Chondrosarcoma has about 60% 5year survival rate. But with metastatic lesion it reduces to 20-30%. The mainstay of successful treatment is early and accurate diagnosis, staging of the disease and adherence to treatment.