cannot identify tumor

KPmom

Hi, I'm a 26 year old woman with a husband and 14 month old daughter. I was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in my right tibia on April 16th. I had wide resection surgery on April 28th with an allograft. The doctors tell me they can't figure out what kind of tumor it is so they can't give me chemotherapy (although they assure me the margins during surgery were all negative) Even though the tumor is gone from my tibia there is a chance that it may have metastased prior to surgery (so far the CT scans and etc have been negative). Has anyone else ever just had surgery and no chemo? I'm scared! I feel as thought I need the chemo to save my life.

sml536

Where are you located and have you thought of getting a second opinion. I have never heard of not being able to identify what kind of tumor they removed. My son has had bone cancer twice and I never got answers like you did. He got chemo both times before surgery and then again after surgery, even though all the margins were clear and the tumor was 100% killed from the previous rounds of chemo. My son was cancer free from the first time with bone cancer for 5 1/2 years and it came back. I would definitely look further for answers! We are in Boston and go to Mass General Hospital. Sml536@aol.com

rwebb

Seek another opinion or consult. Hopefully you are near a treatment center with a specialist in bone tumors. I was in a similar situation as you in 2001 and had chemo-resection-chemo treatment for what was diagnosed as high grade spindle-cell sarcoma.