While doctors thought a British teenager’s thigh pain was sciatica, the patient was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma three years later.
- Three years after suffering from thigh pain that doctors said was sciatica, Jake Spencer, then 17, was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma.
- It is a rare and aggressive soft tissue tumor that “manifests as a slowly growing, deep-seated, painless mass.”
- The sarcoma spread to his lungs and the patient had to have surgery to remove the tumor.
During a driving lesson, Jake Spencer, aged 17 at the time, felt pain in his left thigh. He assumed it was muscle tension from using the clutch. The teenager nevertheless consulted a doctor who thought it was sciatica, also called sciatic nerve neuralgia. To relieve the pain, the doctor prescribed painkillers. Problem: the pain persisted to the point where he could no longer leave his house. Thus, the young man, originally from Ashford in Kent (England), had to undergo a battery of tests and receive treatment: physiotherapy, X-rays, wave therapy, the insertion of five needles into the thigh to drain a sac supposedly filled with fluid. The latter did not prove effective.
Synovial sarcoma: “I felt a sense of relief because the pain wasn’t just in my head”
In August 2018, three years after the first symptoms, he underwent new tests, including a biopsy. They revealed that the young British man had synovial sarcoma. According to the Orphanetit is a rare and aggressive tumor of soft tissues. Although it usually manifests in adulthood, adolescents and children account for 30% of reported cases. “Despite its name, this cancer does not appear to be of synovial origin, but rather arises from multipotent stem cells that differentiate into epithelial and/or mesenchymal structures. The tumor manifests as a slowly growing, deep-seated, painless mass.”
In an interview with the Daily Mailthe patient confided in his condition after the diagnosis was announced. “I just remember being told it was cancer, everything was going in one ear and out the other. I was on autopilot for a few days, trying to figure out what was going on. But at the same time, I felt a sense of relief, because this pain wasn’t just in my head, there was an answer to it. It was a liberating feeling. But, I was also angry that it had been allowed to grow all this time, causing more pain, even though I said I was in agony. I wasn’t thinking about the future, I just knew I had to get through the present to have a future. Nothing else really mattered. Survival mode is the best way to describe it.”
Another sarcoma detected in his lungs
In November 2018, Jake underwent five weeks of radiation therapy followed by surgery to remove 13 cm from his thigh. Just when he thought he had gotten rid of the tumor, a follow-up scan revealed another one in his lungs. “It was hidden by my heart. I was terrified that I wouldn’t survive the chemotherapy or whatever treatment would be needed to get rid of it.” In May 2020, the young man underwent surgery to remove the tumor from his lung, and since then, he has no more traces of cancer. However, he still has persistent orthopedic problems due to muscle loss in his thigh.
English advises patients to always seek further medical advice “if you feel like there is something worse going on. I don’t blame the doctors for the misdiagnosis, the cancer was very hard to detect because my tumor was very deep and there was no visible lump. It took 941 days for me to be diagnosed and I consider myself very lucky to have survived.”
