A sarcoma is a very rare kind of cancer that affects the type of tissue in your body that holds it all together. Before we tackle sarcomas, we should know how to describe cancer in general. Most people, even cancer patients, don’t really understand the simple nature of cancer. Simply put, it is unwanted cell growth. When a cell grows, it does not get bigger it just divides. So when a cell grows, it actually splits into two cells and then they split making four cells, and they split to make eight, and so-on and so-on. At some point, they have split so many times that there are thousands and thousands of cells in a ball. This ball is what we call a mass or a tumor. It is simply a collection of cells that started from the one cell that didn’t behave. If a cell that starts growing is in the skin, you have skin cancer. If it is in the breast, you have breast cancer. If it is in the kidney, you have kidney cancer. Where ever that cell starts, that is the name given to the cancer.

To help understand a little more, we like to divide cancer into three large families. The first family is cancer that starts in organs. We consider skin and breast an organ. So this family includes breast cancer, brain cancer, kidney cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, cervical or uterus cancer, etc. The medical term for this family is carcinoma. They are by far the most common cancers. The second family includes the cancers that start in the cells that make up our blood. These include lymphomas, leukemias, and myelomas. The last family includes our families. These are the sarcomas. They include cancer of everything else that has not been mentioned; all the stuff that holds us together. That means cancer of the muscles and fat, the nerves and arteries, and the cartilage and bones. These are very rare cancers so if you have read this far, then you or a loved one is in a very small club.

Sarcomas are a problem for two big reasons. One is that they are so rare that there aren’t enough patients to do research to the degree that it is done for breast cancer or leukemia. Second is that the cancers are very strong. Although they are not unbeatable, they are a very tough challenge and often involve both chemotherapy and radiation to treat. Sarcoma Warriors is here to help with this challenge. Consider us the hired henchman.