Pain and tenderness
Pain symptoms can be different depending on the type of tumor and its location. Osteoid osteoma presents with severe intermittent night pain located in the bone involved, which is relieved by analgesics such as aspirin. There’s also tenderness on palpation of the site of the tumor. Osteomas can cause obstruction of the sinuses and symptoms related to sinusitis, especially headache, but also tenderness of sinuses; otherwise, osteomas are not usually painful and may only cause compression symptoms.
Cystic lesions of the bone can cause localized pain. Patients with osteoblastoma may also report pain. Chondromas are not painful, but if there is pain in a previously diagnosed chondroma, it means there is a malignant transformation into chondrosarcoma. Back pain is the feature of tumors in the spine. In cases with pathological fractures, there is acute pain in the affected area.
In patients with osteosarcoma, pain is the predominant symptom even when there is no swelling of the tumor mass. Ewing’s sarcoma, also known as reticulum cell tumor, presents as persistent pain or ache, which becomes worse on motion. Osteoclastoma presents with dull pain or acute pain if there is a pathological fracture. Patients with multiple myeloma present with intractable pain of the skeleton, mostly the axial skeleton.