Diagnosis

Tests and procedures used to diagnose chondrosarcoma include:

• Physical exam. Your doctor may ask about your signs and symptoms and examine your body to gather more clues about your diagnosis.
• Imaging tests. Imaging tests may include X-ray, bone scan, MRI and CT scan.

• Removing a sample of tissue for testing (biopsy). Biopsy is a procedure to collect suspicious tissue. The tissue is sent to a lab where doctors analyze it to determine whether it's cancer.

  How the biopsy sample is collected depends on where the suspicious tissue is located. The procedure requires careful planning so that the biopsy is done in a way that won't interfere with future surgery to remove the cancer. For this reason, ask your doctor for a referral to a team of experts with experience in treating chondrosarcoma.