Tumor on knee, result of injury? - Knee & Hip Problems Message Board

Play_Hard · 09-01-2006, 10:06 AM

I injured my knee, the story is under "Knee injury led to cyst". Long story short, what the orthopedic doctor thought was a cyst in not. I was referred to an orthopedic oncologist and he confirmed that the mass that I have is a tumor. I have surgery on the 18th of September, finally the pain will be gone!

What is really weird is I tore my MCL and after that happened I had this pain in a totally different part of the knee. My first doctor dismissed it as a kneecap tracking problem, told me to do exercises, ice and pretty much blew off the fact that that it still hurt (in fact the exercises caused more pain).

What I don't understand is how on earth would this injury cause a tumor? Maybe it didn't, but it sure is a coincidence that I never had this pain until my MCL tear. My new doctor told me that a tumor can be a result of trauma. Has anyone heard of this? I'm not sure how a tumor can start growing because of an injury. ???

MoLu · 09-01-2006, 10:17 PM

Hi Play Hard-
I have a disease called Synovial Chondromatosis which produces benign soft tissue tumors. I have it in the knee. Has your dr said what kind of tumor this is you have? I'm curious if you have a similar disease. Another similar disease is PVNS that causes tumors. Any of these names discussed with you? I too go to an orthopedic oncologist for this and have had several operations. You can read some of my earlier posts under synovial chondromatosis further down this page. I know sometimes the tumor can weaken your knee and the injury is a result of the weakness and not the other way around. Are you scheduled for arthoscopy or open knee surgery? Let me know I'm curious. Good luck to you.
MoLu

Play_Hard · 09-05-2006, 02:19 AM

Hello, I am scheduled for open surgery as the tumor is too big just to scope. I wish they could just scope it, I am not looking forward to a huge scar. The doctor did not discuss the diseases you mentioned with me. He did discuss a condition called "myositis ossificans". This conditon happens when you have had trauma and I had trauma to my knee. He did mention a disease called "nuerofibromatosis" because he noticed one of the signs of this disease which are "cafe au lait" marks on my skin. He really didn't know what to tell me about what it is until he removes the tumor. He asked me to provide the information on a surgery to remove a tumor that I had when I was 9 years old. Other than that, I just have to wait and see which makes me really stressed.

Play_Hard · 10-12-2006, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoLu

Hi Play Hard-
I have a disease called Synovial Chondromatosis which produces benign soft tissue tumors. I have it in the knee. Has your dr said what kind of tumor this is you have? I'm curious if you have a similar disease. Another similar disease is PVNS that causes tumors. Any of these names discussed with you? I too go to an orthopedic oncologist for this and have had several operations. You can read some of my earlier posts under synovial chondromatosis further down this page. I know sometimes the tumor can weaken your knee and the injury is a result of the weakness and not the other way around. Are you scheduled for arthoscopy or open knee surgery? Let me know I'm curious. Good luck to you.
MoLu

MoLu-

I had my surgery and the tumor was found in the synovium. The oncologist said that the location of the tumor was rare. I am curious about this Synovial Chrondromatosis. I know that you mentioned that the tumor can weaken the knee and an injury can be the result of the weakend knee. I do know that was not the case with my situation. My injury happened as a result of me falling off of a ski lift (I tore my MCL and did some other damage), which I think anyone would have messed-up their knee in that situation. However, the tumor did not show up until about a year after my accident. I'm thinking that either the injury and tumor are totally separate cases or the injury after time stimulated the growth of a tumor.

I did a little reading about this disease and found it interesting that these tumors can form in areas where there is a synovium membrane (knee, hip, ankle, etc...). I had a tumor on my ankle when I was 9 years old, I'm not sure if this was located in the synovium (my surgery report was not that detailed).

Any more information on this condition would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

MoLu · 10-21-2006, 09:09 PM

Hi Play Hard-
Since you have had your surgery what were the findings from your biopsy? I'm sure they would have done this and confirmed what kind of tumor you have. I'm curious too as to what kind of tumor you had. We have some things in common. I'm 55 now but was an advid skier when I was younger and it was the only time I ever injured my knee but that was 35 years ago. Took some good tumbles and sprained my knee twice and broke an ankle. Also find it interesting that I too had a small tumor removed maybe 5 years ago from the side of the heel. I don't know what it was either and wonder sometimes if it is all connected. I remember the dr also saying how unusual the location was. Now this disease has surfaced. The most prominent feeling is loss of extension and flexion and fullness/tightness and now swelling in the knee. I also had a dull deep pain in the back of the knee. Took about 5 years before anyone figured out what was wrong. I lost feeling in my heel first and then the bottom of my foot and knew I had to find out what was going on. Unfortunately I think I didn't pursue it soon enough and now have permanent damage to my tibial nerve. Luckily for me it's not very painful but back of leg, heel, bottom edge of foot and several toes are now numb. I guess the tumors stretched the nerve causing the damage and they think it is now scarred. Now arthritis has set in and I'm looking at a TKR before too long.
Does any of this feel familiar to you? Any more questions feel free to ask.
MoLu