Osteosarcoma: Examination

A comprehensive clinical examination is the basis for selecting further diagnostic steps:

  • General physical examination – including blood pressure, pulse, body temperature, body weight, body height; further:
    • Inspection (viewing).
      • Skin and mucous membranes
      • Neck
      • Extremities:
        • [Swelling? may be reddish or bluish in color; size; consistency; displaceability of skin from underlying surface.
        • Deformities of joints and bones?]
      • Spine, thorax (chest).
    • Auscultation (listening) of the heart.
    • Auscultation of the lungs
    • Palpation (palpation) of the painful area [pressure pain, pain on movement, pain at rest?]
    • Palpation of the abdomen (belly), etc.
    • Checking the mobility of the painful area [functional limitation?]
  • If necessary, orthopedic examination [due todifferential diagnoses:
    • Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP; synonyms: Fibrodysplasia ossificans multiplex progressiva, Myositis ossificans progressiva, Münchmeyer syndrome) – genetic disease with autosomal dominant inheritance; describes pathological, progressive ossification (ossification) of the connective and supporting tissues of the human body, leading to ossification of the musculature; shortened and twisted big toes are already present at birth as a nonspecific symptom.
    • Bone abscess
    • Paget’s disease (osteodystrophia deformans) – bone disease that results in bone remodeling and gradual thickening of several bones, usually the spine, pelvis, extremities or skull.
    • Ossification (ossification) after fractures (bone fractures).
    • Osteochondrosis dissecans – circumscribed aseptic bone necrosis below the articular cartilage, which can end with the rejection of the affected bone area with the overlying cartilage as a free joint body (joint mouse).
    • Osteomyelitis – acute or chronic inflammation of the bone and bone marrow, usually due to bacterial infection; combination of osteitis and myelitis (bone marrow/spinal cord).
    • Osteopoikilosis (synonyms: osteopathia condensans disseminata, osteopoikilia; “stippled bone”) – multiple, small, round or oval foci of bony sclerosis (“hardening”; localized in the metaphyseal-epiphyseal region of long bones, among others; may simulate osteoblastic bone metastases in breast carcinoma
    • Ostitis (synonym: osteitis) – inflammation of bone tissue.
    • Injuries/sports injuries]

    [due topossible secondary diseases:

    • Chronic pain
    • Pathological fracture (bone fracture) (spontaneous fracture due to pathological (pathological) processes in the bone)]
  • Health check

Square brackets [ ] indicate possible pathological (pathological) physical findings.