BATON ROUGE — Sarcoma is a term for a broad group of cancers that start in the bones or soft tissue such as muscle, fat, blood vessels, nerves, tendons and joints.

One of the signs of a sarcoma is a lump that can be felt through the skin that may or may not be painful.

"Many patients will wonder: 'I have a lump on my arm or my leg. Should I have this evaluated? Who should I see, and when are these symptoms concerning?’” Mayo Clinic's Dr. Krista Goulding said. "If you have a lump on your arm or your leg that is growing rapidly or is bigger than the size of a golf ball, this needs rapid attention."

The first step in diagnosing a lump is to get advanced imaging, typically starting with a radiograph or X-ray.

"The next step is to get cross-sectional imaging, which means either an MRI or a CT scan,” Goulding said.

Followed by a biopsy to remove a sample of tissue for testing.

"And this helps our multidisciplinary team make decisions about how to treat these tumors because these tumors can be benign. They can be benign aggressive, meaning that they are not cancerous, but they can cause problems locally. And then there can be cancer diagnosis similar to sarcomas and other types of cancers that will need rapid attention,” Goulding said.