Prognosis is separated into three groups.

- Stage I osteosarcoma is rare and includes parosteal osteosarcoma or low-grade central osteosarcoma. It has an excellent prognosis (>90%) with wide resection.

- Stage II prognosis depends on the site of the tumor (proximal tibia, femur, pelvis, etc.), size of the tumor mass, and the degree of necrosis from neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Other pathological factors such as the degree of p-glycoprotein, whether the tumor is cxcr4-positive, or Her2-positive are also important, as these are associated with distant metastases to the lung. The prognosis for patients with metastatic osteosarcoma improves with longer times to metastases, (more than 12 months to 4 months), a smaller number of metastases, and their resectability. It is better to have fewer metastases than longer time to metastases. Those with a longer length of time (more than 24 months) and few nodules (two or fewer) have the best prognosis, with a two-year survival after the metastases of 50%, five-year of 40%, and 10-year of 20%. If metastases are both local and regional, the prognosis is worse.

- Initial presentation of stage III osteosarcoma with lung metastases depends on the resectability of the primary tumor and lung nodules, degree of necrosis of the primary tumor, and maybe the number of metastases. Overall survival prognosis is about 30%.

Deaths due to malignant neoplasms of the bones and joints account for an unknown number of childhood cancer deaths. Mortality rates due to osteosarcoma have been declining at about 1.3% per year. Long-term survival probabilities for osteosarcoma have improved dramatically during the late 20th century and approximated 68% in 2009.

Several research groups are investigating cancer stem cells and their potential to cause tumors along with genes and proteins causative in different phenotypes.Radiotherapy for unrelated conditions may be a rare cause.

- Familial cases where the deletion of chromosome 13q14 inactivates the retinoblastoma gene is associated with a high risk of osteosarcoma development.

- Bone dysplasias, including Paget's disease of bone, fibrous dysplasia, enchondromatosis, and hereditary multiple exostoses, increase the risk of osteosarcoma.

- Li–Fraumeni syndrome (germline TP53 mutation) is a predisposing factor for osteosarcoma development.

- Rothmund–Thomson syndrome (i.e. autosomal recessive association of congenital bone defects, hair and skin dysplasias, hypogonadism, and cataracts) is associated with increased risk of this disease.

- Large doses of Sr-90 emission from nuclear reactor, nicknamed bone seeker increases the risk of bone cancer and leukemia in animals, and is presumed to do so in people.

Despite persistent rumors suggesting otherwise, there is no clear association between water fluoridation and cancer or deaths due to cancer, both for cancer in general and also specifically for bone cancer and osteosarcoma. Series of research concluded that concentration of fluoride in water doesn't associate with osteosarcoma. The beliefs regarding association of fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma stem from a study of US National Toxicology program in 1990, which showed uncertain evidence of association of fluoride and osteosarcoma in male rats. But there is still no solid evidence of cancer-causing tendency of fluoride in mice. Fluoridation of water has been practiced around the world to improve citizens' dental health. It is also deemed as major health success. Fluoride concentration levels in water supplies are regulated, such as United States Environmental Protection Agency regulates fluoride levels to not be greater than 4 milligrams per liter. Actually, water supplies already have natural occurring fluoride, but many communities chose to add more fluoride to the point that it can reduce tooth decay. Fluoride is also known for its ability to cause new bone formation. Yet, further research shows no osteosarcoma risks from fluoridated water in humans. Most of the research involved counting number of osteosarcoma patients cases in particular areas which has difference concentrations of fluoride in drinking water. The statistic analysis of the data shows no significant difference in occurrences of osteosarcoma cases in different fluoridated regions. Another important research involved collecting bone samples from osteosarcoma patients to measure fluoride concentration and compare them to bone samples of newly diagnosed malignant bone tumors. The result is that the median fluoride concentrations in bone samples of osteosarcoma patients and tumor controls are not significantly different. Not only fluoride concentration in bones, Fluoride exposures of osteosarcoma patients are also proven to be not significantly different from healthy people.

Ewing's sarcomas represent 16% of primary bone sarcomas. In the United States, they are most common in the second decade of life, with a rate of 0.3 cases per million in children under 3 years of age, and as high as 4.6 cases per million in adolescents aged 15–19 years. Internationally, the annual incidence rate averages less than 2 cases per million children. In the United Kingdom, an average of six children per year are diagnosed, mainly males in early stages of puberty. Due to the prevalence of diagnosis during teenage years, a link may exist between the onset of puberty and the early stages of this disease, although no research confirms this hypothesis.

The oldest known patient diagnosed was at age 76, from the Mercer County, New Jersey, area.

A grouping of three unrelated teenagers in Wake Forest, NC, have been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma. All three children were diagnosed in 2011 and all attended the same temporary classroom together while the school underwent renovation. A fourth teenager living nearby was diagnosed in 2009. The odds of this grouping are considered significant.

Ewing's sarcoma shows striking differences in incidence across human populations and is about 10- to 20-fold more common in populations from European descent as compared to Africans. Consistently, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted in several hundreds European individuals with Ewing's sarcoma and genetically-matched healthy controls identified three susceptibility loci located on chromosomes 1, 10 and 15. A continuative study discovered that the Ewing's sarcoma susceptibility gene "EGR2", which is located within the chromosome 10 susceptibility locus, is regulated by the "EWSR1-FLI1" fusion oncogene via a GGAA-microsatellite.

Ewing's sarcoma is the second most common bone cancer in children and adolescents, with poor prognosis and outcome in ~70% of initial diagnoses and 10–15% of relapses.

Staging attempts to distinguish patients with localized from those with metastatic disease. Most commonly, metastases occur in the chest, bone and/or bone marrow. Less common sites include the central nervous system and lymph nodes.

Five-year survival for localized disease is 70% to 80% when treated with chemotherapy. Prior to the use of multi-drug chemotherapy, long-term survival was less than 10%. The development of multi-disciplinary therapy with chemotherapy, irradiation, and surgery has increased current long-term survival rates in most clinical centers to greater than 50%. However, some sources state it is 25–30%.

Retrospective research in patients led by Idriss M. Bennani-Baiti (Cancer Epigenetics Society) showed that two chemokine receptors, CXCR4 and CXCR7, can be used as molecular prognosis factors. Patients who express low levels of both chemokine receptors have the highest odds of long-term survival with >90% survival at 5 years post-diagnosis versus <30% survival at 5 years for patients with very high expression levels of both receptors.

JMML accounts for 1-2% of childhood leukemias each year; in the United States, an estimated 25-50 new cases are diagnosed each year, which also equates to about 3 cases per million children. There is no known environmental cause for JMML. Since about 10% of patients are diagnosed before 3 months of age, it is thought that JMML is a congenital condition in these infants

Adult survivors of childhood cancer have some physical, psychological, and social difficulties.

Premature heart disease is a major long-term complication in adult survivors of childhood cancer. Adult survivors are eight times more likely to die of heart disease than other people, and more than half of children treated for cancer develop some type of cardiac abnormality, although this may be asymptomatic or too mild to qualify for a clinical diagnosis of heart disease.

Giant-cell tumor of the bone accounts for 4-5% of primary bone tumors and about 20% of benign bone tumors. However, significantly higher incidence rates are observed in Asia, where it constitutes about 20% of all primary bone tumors in China. It is slightly more common in females, has a predilection for the epiphyseal/metaphyseal region of long bones, and generally occurs in the third to fourth decade. Although classified as a benign tumor, GCTOB has been observed to metastesize to the lungs in up to 5% of cases, and in rare instances (1-3%) can transform to the malignant sarcoma phenotype with equal disease outcome.

Neuroblastoma comprises 6–10% of all childhood cancers, and 15% of cancer deaths in children. The annual mortality rate is 10 per million children in the 0- to 4-year-old age group, and 4 per million in the 4- to 9-year old age group.

The highest incidence is in the first year of life, and some cases are congenital. The age range is broad, including older children and adults, but only 10% of cases occur in people older than 5 years of age. A large European study reported less than 2% of over 4000 neuroblastoma cases were over 18 years old.

Familial and genetic factors are identified in 5-15% of childhood cancer cases. In <5-10% of cases, there are known environmental exposures and exogenous factors, such as prenatal exposure to tobacco, X-rays, or certain medications. For the remaining 75-90% of cases, however, the individual causes remain unknown. In most cases, as in carcinogenesis in general, the cancers are assumed to involve multiple risk factors and variables.

Aspects that make the risk factors of childhood cancer different from those seen in adult cancers include:

- Different, and sometimes unique, exposures to environmental hazards. Children must often rely on adults to protect them from toxic environmental agents.

- Immature physiological systems to clear or metabolize environmental substances

- The growth and development of children in phases known as "developmental windows" result in certain "critical windows of vulnerability".

Also, a longer life expectancy in children avails for a longer time to manifest cancer processes with long latency periods, increasing the risk of developing some cancer types later in life.

There are preventable causes of childhood malignancy, such as delivery overuse and misuse of ionizing radiation through computed tomography scans when the test is not indicated or when adult protocols are used.

Based on a series of 493 neuroblastoma samples, it has been reported that overall genomic pattern, as tested by array-based karyotyping, is a predictor of outcome in neuroblastoma:

- Tumors presenting exclusively with whole chromosome copy number changes were associated with excellent survival.

- Tumors presenting with any kind of segmental chromosome copy number changes were associated with a high risk of relapse.

- Within tumors showing segmental alterations, additional independent predictors of decreased overall survival were N-myc amplification, 1p and 11q deletions, and 1q gain.

Earlier publications categorized neuroblastomas into three major subtypes based on cytogenetic profiles:

- Subtype 1: favorable neuroblastoma with near triploidy and a predominance of numerical gains and losses, mostly representing non-metastatic NB stages 1, 2 and 4S.

- Subtypes 2A and 2B: found in unfavorable widespread neuroblastoma, stages 3 and 4, with 11q loss and 17q gain without N-myc amplification (subtype 2A) or with N-myc amplification often together with 1p deletions and 17q gain (subtype 2B).

Virtual karyotyping can be performed on fresh or paraffin-embedded tumors to assess copy number at these loci. SNP array virtual karyotyping is preferred for tumor samples, including neuroblastomas, because they can detect copy neutral loss of heterozygosity (acquired uniparental disomy). Copy neutral LOH can be biologically equivalent to a deletion and has been detected at key loci in neuroblastoma. ArrayCGH, FISH, or conventional cytogenetics cannot detect copy neutral LOH.

Sarcomas are quite rare with only 15,000 new cases per year in the United States. Sarcomas therefore represent about one percent of the 1.5 million new cancer diagnoses in that country each year.

Sarcomas affect people of all ages. Approximately 50% of bone sarcomas and 20% of soft tissue sarcomas are diagnosed in people under the age of 35. Some sarcomas, such as leiomyosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), are more common in adults than in children. Most high-grade bone sarcomas, including Ewing's sarcoma and osteosarcoma, are much more common in children and young adults.

A number of tumors have giant cells, but are not true benign giant-cell tumors. These include, aneurysmal bone cyst, chondroblastoma, simple bone cyst, osteoid osteoma, osteoblastoma, osteosarcoma, giant-cell reparative granuloma, and brown tumor of hyperparathyroidism.

Prognosis refers to how well a patient is expected to respond to treatment based on their individual characteristics at time of diagnosis. In JMML, three characteristic areas have been identified as significant in the prognosis of patients:

Without treatment, the survival [5 years?] of children with JMML is approximately 5%. Only Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT), commonly referred to as a bone marrow or (umbilical) cord blood transplant, has been shown to be successful in curing a child of JMML. With HSCT, recent research studies have found the survival rate to be approximately 50%. Relapse is a significant risk after HSCT for children with JMML. It is the greatest cause of death in JMML children who have had stem cell transplants. Relapse rate has been recorded as high as 50%. Many children have been brought into remission after a second stem cell transplant.

In the United States, the annual incidence of chordoma is approximately 1 in one million (300 new patients each year).

There are currently no known environmental risk factors for chordoma. As noted above germline duplication of brachyury has been identified as a major susceptibility mechanism in several chordoma families.

While most people with chordoma have no other family members with the disease, rare occurrences of multiple cases within families have been documented. This suggests that some people may be genetically predisposed to develop chordoma. Because genetic or hereditary risk factors for chordoma may exist, scientists at the National Cancer Institute are conducting a Familial Chordoma Study to search for genes involved in the development of this tumor.

Sarcomas are given a number of different names based on the type of tissue that they most closely resemble. For example, osteosarcoma resembles bone, chondrosarcoma resembles cartilage, liposarcoma resembles fat, and leiomyosarcoma resembles smooth muscle.

FHCC accounts for 1-10% of primary liver cancers. It typically has a young age at presentation (20–40 years: mean age ~27 years) when compared to conventional HCC. Unlike the more common HCC, patients most often do not have coexistent liver disease such as cirrhosis.

In the US, Osteoblastomas account for only 0.5-2% of all primary bone tumors and only 14% of benign bone tumors making it a relatively rare form of bone tumor.

In regards to morbidity and mortality, conventional osteoblastoma is a benign lesion with little associated morbidity. However, the tumor may be painful, and spinal lesions may be associated with scoliosis and neurologic manifestations. Metastases and even death have been reported with the controversial aggressive variant, which can behave in a fashion similar to that of osteosarcoma. This variant is also more likely to recur after surgery than is conventional osteoblastoma.

Osteoblastoma affects more males than it does females, with a ratio of 2-3:1 respectively. Osteoblastoma can occur in persons of any age, although the tumors predominantly affect the younger population (around 80% of these tumors occurs in persons under the age of 30). No racial predilection is recognized.

It usually presents in the vertebral column or long bones. Approximately 40% of all osteoblastomas are located in the spine. The tumors usually involve the posterior elements, and 17% of spinal osteoblastomas are found in the sacrum. The long tubular bones are another common site of involvement, with a lower extremity preponderance. Osteoblastoma of the long tubular bones is often diaphyseal, and fewer are located in the metaphysis. Epiphyseal involvement is extremely rare. Although other sites are rarely affected, several bones in the abdomen and extremities have been reported as sites of osteoblastoma tumors.

A bone tumor (also spelled bone tumour) is a neoplastic growth of tissue in bone. Abnormal growths found in the bone can be either benign (noncancerous) or malignant (cancerous).

Average five-year survival in the United States after being diagnosed with bone and joint cancer is 67%.

Bone tumors may be classified as "primary tumors", which originate in bone or from bone-derived cells and tissues, and "secondary tumors" which originate in other sites and spread (metastasize) to the skeleton. Carcinomas of the prostate, breasts, lungs, thyroid, and kidneys are the carcinomas that most commonly metastasize to bone. Secondary malignant bone tumors are estimated to be 50 to 100 times as common as primary bone cancers.

The most common bone tumor is called osteosarcoma, and typically affects middle-age to older dogs of large and giant breeds. Osteosarcoma is less common in cats. Osteosarcoma is an aggressive cancer that can develop in any bone of the body but the majority is seen in the limbs (e.g. long bones such as radius, humerus, femur, and tibia).

Depending on the pet's unique condition, there are several treatment options, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Treating the pain adequately is also of crucial importance to improve the pet's quality of life, especially if amputation is not performed.

The cause of osteoblastoma is unknown. Histologically, osteoblastomas are similar to osteoid osteomas, producing both osteoid and primitive woven bone amidst fibrovascular connective tissue, the difference being that osteoblastoma can grow larger than 2.0 cm in diameter while osteoid osteomas cannot. Although the tumor is usually considered benign, a controversial aggressive variant has been described in the literature, with histologic features similar to those of malignant tumors such as an osteosarcoma.

The most common sources of brain metastases in a case series of 2,700 patients undergoing treatment at the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center were:

- Lung cancer, 48%

- Breast cancer, 15%

- Genitourinary tract cancers, 11%

- Osteosarcoma, 10%

- Melanoma, 9%

- Head and neck cancer, 6%

- Neuroblastoma, 5%

- Gastrointestinal cancers, especially colorectal and pancreatic carcinoma, 3%

- Lymphoma, 1%

Lung cancer and melanoma are most likely to present with multiple metastasis, whereas breast, colon, and renal cancers are more likely to present with a single metastasis.

Li–Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is relatively rare; as of 2011, cases had been reported in more than 500 families. The syndrome was discovered using an epidemiological approach. Li and Fraumeni identified four families in which siblings or cousins of rhabdomyosarcoma patients had a childhood sarcoma, which suggested a familial cancer syndrome. Identification of TP53 as the gene affected by mutation was suggested by the same approach. Over half of the cancers in Li-Fraumeni families had been previously associated with inactivating mutations of the p53 gene and in one primary research study, DNA sequencing in samples taken from five Li–Fraumeni syndrome families showed autosomal dominant inheritance of a mutated TP53 gene.

A 2009 revision of the traditional Chompret criteria for screening has been proposed:

A proband who has:

- tumor belonging to the LFS tumor spectrum - soft tissue sarcoma, osteosarcoma, pre-menopausal breast cancer, brain tumor, adrenocortical carcinoma, leukemia or lung bronchoalveolar cancer - before age 46 years;

and at least one of the following:

- at least one first or second degree relative with an LFS tumour (except breast cancer if the proband has breast cancer) before age 56 years or with multiple tumours

- a proband with multiple tumours (except multiple breast tumours), two of which belong to the LFS tumour spectrum and the first of which occurred before age 46 years

- a proband who is diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma or choroid plexus tumour, irrespective of family history