Author: Katheryn Burch

Cancer may affect every region of the body and the foot is no different. It is, however, uncommon within the feet but when it does happen having the diagnosis correct is extremely important. Cancer is a disease of the cells in different body tissues. A cancer takes place when unnatural cells develop in an unrestrained manner and they can damage or invade the adjacent tissues, or propagate to other parts of the body, triggering further damage.

There's two types of cancer that might impact the foot. The first is that a tumour may grow in one of the cells in the foot. It can be in any tissue on the foot with the skin to the tendons to the joints to the bone. This could be a melanoma in the skin or perhaps an osteoma in the bone tissue. They are sometimes visible to the eye, if on the skin or imaging if in deeper tissues. The signs and symptoms may differ from the physical appearance on the skin to pain deep inside the foot. The pain is typically not like the more typical reasons behind foot pain, so can be easy to diagnose. These types of types of cancers affecting the feet tend to be benign and comparatively straightforward to handle. Sometimes they're not benign and their treatment plan assumes some urgency should it be malignant.

One other type of cancer which has an effect on the foot is the ones that are a metastasis from the cancer somewhere else in the body like the brain or bladder. They send out a seed which imbeds in alternative tissues faraway from the initial cancer, in this case, the foot. Most likely the presence of the primary cancer is known, however, this indication of the spread is major. Occasionally the foot pain from a metastasis from the faraway cancer is the initial manifestation of the cancer, which is often a bad signal, so it is required to be quickly further investigated.

This can be a clear warning the key reason why it's extremely crucial to get a diagnosis identified and right for just about any cause of foot pain. The chances are that the issue is simple, and the diagnosis is not problematic. On that exceptionally rare event that it is a cancer is possibly the cause, the significance of having the diagnosis correct early on could be the difference between the problem being dangerous or not. Podiatrists have got a great deal of education in foot disorders and these uncommon disorders will always be on their radar every time they are dealing with a patient with foot pain. The consequence to the patient in terms of a much better end result are dependent on the podiatric physician becoming suspicious that uncommon reason for the pain and having it further investigated if they are suspect.

The treating of a cancer that has an effect on the feet will be based on if it is malignant or benign as well as what tissue is impacted and how deep it has advanced. The treatment of cancers that affect the feet are no different to cancer elsewhere in the body and can require a team of medical experts.