What’s new in bone forming tumours of the skeleton?

Abstract

Bone tumours are difficult to diagnose and treat, as they are rare and over 60 different subtypes are recognised. The emergence of next-generation sequencing has partly elucidated the molecular mechanisms behind these tumours, including the group of bone forming tumours (osteoma, osteoid osteoma, osteoblastoma and osteosarcoma). Increased knowledge on the molecular mechanism could help to identify novel diagnostic markers and/or treatment options. Osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma are bone forming tumours without malignant potential that have overlapping morphology. They were recently shown to carry FOS and—to a lesser extent—FOSB rearrangements suggesting that these tumours are closely related. The presence of these rearrangements could help discriminate these entities from other lesions with woven bone deposition. Osteosarcoma is a malignant bone forming tumour for which different histological subtypes are recognised. High-grade osteosarcoma is the prototype of a complex karyotype tumour, and extensive research exploring its molecular background has identified phenomena like chromothripsis and kataegis and some recurrent alterations. Due to lack of specificity, this has not led to a valuable novel diagnostic marker so far. Nevertheless, these studies have also pointed towards potential targetable drivers of which the therapeutic merit remains to be further explored.