If You Have a Soft Tissue Sarcoma
What is sarcoma?
This information is about sarcomas in adults. Sarcoma is a type of cancer that starts in certain parts of the body, like bone or muscle. These cancers start in soft tissues like fat, muscle, nerves, fibrous tissues, blood vessels, or deep skin tissues. They can be found anywhere in the body, but most of them start in the arms or legs.
Sarcoma starts when certain cells, like muscle cells, grow out of control and crowd out normal cells. This makes it hard for the body to work the way it should.
Sarcoma cells can spread to other parts of the body. Sarcoma cells in an arm muscle can sometimes travel to the lung and grow there. When cancer cells do this, it’s called metastasis. To doctors, the cancer cells in the new place look just like the ones from the arm muscle.
Cancer is always named for the place where it starts. So when soft tissue sarcoma spreads to the lu