The Rare Types of Cancer

What are the leading rare types of cancer? Why are some tumors considered as rare? According to experts, all cancers with diagnosed cases lower than 35,000 annually are considered as rare. But steps on prevention are the same with the common types. An example of a rare kind of tumor is infiltrating lobular carcinoma, an invasive breast cancer type.

The Different Rare Cancers include the following . . .

1. Cervical Cancer

Cervical tumors used to be one of the common types among women. Sadly, it still is in poor and developing countries.

In developed countries such as the United States, it is already one of the rare types of cancer compared to endometrial and ovarian types. Reasons are the pap smears and the vaccines used as prevention against different types of human viruses specifically HPV.

Vaccines are now available to every young woman who is sexually active.

2. Synovial Sarcoma

It affects the soft tissues such as muscles, fat, blood vessels, and fibrous and synovial tissues. It is a type that has no defined cause but genetics is believed to play a role in its development.

How rare is it? Of the 10,000 new soft tissue cases diagnosed each year, only 5 to 10% is synovial sarcoma. This occurs more often among men and about one-half of the cases start in the knees.

3. Primary Bone Cancer

Examples very rare primary bone cancers are Osteosarcoma, Ewing's Sarcoma, Chondrosarcoma, Angiosarcoma,Chordoma and Spindle Cell Sarcoma. Osteosarcoma is the most common type among these.

4. Invasive Lobular Carcinoma

This is a type of breast tumor which is rare compared to Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Invasive Lobular Carcinoma is considered as a special type and is deadlier. It is also the type that afflicts the breast tissues of men.

5. Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)

IBC patients are only 1 to 6% of the total number of breast tumor cases. It is very aggressive and does not exhibit a lump which is the most common symptom of breast tumor.

Related Articles: Inflammatory Breast Cancer Symptoms

6. Esophageal Cancer

The number of cases of tumors that grow in the esophagus is still rare but it is slowly rising during the past years. The increase is because of a rise in the number of people who are obese.

Dangers of being overweight and harmful effects of tobacco smoking are two of the risk factors for esophageal tumors.

Here's a great tip on prevention: Maintain a healthy normal body weight.

An important sign associated with tumors in the esophagus is dysphagia symptoms.

7. Thyroid Tumors

Te tumor develops in the cells of your thyroid gland. The thyroid gland is found in your throat below your Adam's apple. It makes the hormones that regulate your weight, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.

There are 4 types of thyroid tumor -- papillary, follicular, medullary, and anaplastic. Papillary is the most common among the 4 types and may develop even among those who are in their 30s.

According to experts, a very important risk factor is being exposed to high levels of radiation either from radiation therapy or gases with radioactive elements from leaks or accidents in nuclear plants. The thyroid gland is very vulnerable to a particular radioactive element known as Iodine-131.

See Cancer Prevention Strategies Against Radiation.

8. Brain Tumors

9. Multiple Myeloma

Another term for multiple myeloma is Kahler's disease. It commonly affects men especially blacks. It is a type of cancer that develops in the plasma cells -- white blood cells that make antibodies -- of your bone marrow.

What happens in multiple myeloma? The cancerous plasma cells rapidly multiplies beyond their normal level. Health problems they can cause are. . .

• lesions in your bones if the cancerous plasma cells accumulate there,

• immunodeficiency if the cancerous cells grow in the bone marrow messing up the production of normal white blood cells,

• anemia because the cancerous cells can affect the production of healthy red blood cells and platelets, and

• kidney problems if the abnormal cells produce too much paraprotein.