Now Katie Brooman is backing a campaign to make GPs more aware of the devastating condition.

The 23-year-old, of Longfellow Court, Mytholmroyd, says if her cancer had been found earlier, doctors might not have had to replace her knee and part of her thigh.

"If I'd had x-rays the first time I went to the doctors they might have found the cancer then," she said.

"The treatment might not have been as intensive as it was four years on."

Katie had been suffering pain in her right knee for months when she went to her doctor in 2004.

He said it could be arthritis or growing pains and recommended she undergo physiotherapy.

But when she was still suffering pain a year later she went back to her GP.

"I was annoyed there was this pain and I could not do anything about it," she said.

"At 20 you don't even think it could be bone cancer."

It took more visits to her doctors and Katie asking to be referred to a specialist consultant before her bone cancer was discovered.

"The orthopaedic consultant took one look at my x-ray and knew what it was as soon as he looked at it," she said.

Katie travelled to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham where she had her knee and part of her thigh replaced.

She is now recovering at home and eventually hopes to return to work as a care worker.

In the meantime she is backing the Bone Cancer Research Trust's bid to raise awareness of the disease among GPs and the public.

The charity says bone cancers take longer to diagnose than any other type of cancer in young people, with symptoms like swollen, painful joints often attributed to growing pains or sports injuries.

Tim Eden, professor of teenage and young adult cancer, said: "The big emphasis must be on young people being aware that painful lumps ought to be investigated, and empowering them to make sure that the doctor takes it seriously and arranges an x-ray."