BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech men's basketball player Allen Calloway has an "extremely rare," inoperable cancerous tumor that has spread from his left calf to his lungs.

Team physician Dr. Delmas Bolin said Tuesday that Calloway's prognosis is not known, but he said some patients have lived for at least 10 years after being diagnosed. Bolin said the key is how Calloway responds to the shots of interferon he has been taking since early August.

"Anytime you have a tumor that has spread outside of the initial place that it develops, life expectancy is usually decreased," Bolin said in a phone interview. "With this particular one, it's impossible to predict how long Allen will live and do well. ... If he responds well to interferon, then obviously he's going to do much better in terms of how he's able to live and the quality of life he has.

"This is a serious tumor. It will take a very good response from the interferon to shut this particular tumor down."

Bolin said one study of patients with Calloway's type of cancer -- alveolar soft part sarcoma -- reports that some are still alive as many as 99 months after being diagnosed.

Calloway, a senior reserve forward from Danville, was diagnosed in early July.

"When they first told me, it was heartbreaking," Calloway, 21, said Tuesday at a news conference at Tech. "My family was down, I was down. But with prayer and stuff, and the help of [team trainer] Keith [Doolan] and family up here, I built my strength up. I just want to finish school and try to finish playing as best I can.

"I have a positive attitude about everything."

Calloway is attending classes at Tech and has resumed playing pickup basketball with his teammates. Calloway hopes to play for the Hokies this season, although Bolin said he will get winded more easily now because the cancer is in his lungs.

"Interferon will give you a lot of symptoms that are very similar to the flu after you take it," Bolin said. "He's going to be able to go hard [on the court] and then he'll get winded very quickly. He's going to need to take a breather and then he'll be back. ... He'll be able to perform well for shorter bursts. He may not be out there running for 10 minutes at a time."

Calloway said he noticed about five years ago that his left calf had become bigger and said it is possible the tumor could have been in his calf since then. He had a biopsy in June because the calf had gotten even bigger.

"I thought it was just something else," Calloway said. "I came to Keith and he told me I should get it checked out."

"When he came to Virginia Tech [as a freshman], he actually said, 'Well, I've had this muscle problem for some time,' " Bolin said. "It was just attributed to this old injury that he had."

Calloway's softball-sized tumor started in the muscle tissue in his left calf. His left calf is shaped differently than his right calf, but the tumor is under the skin and not visible. Bolin said the tumor is "intricately" intertwined with blood vessels, making it impossible to remove.

"The problem is it's very slow-growing and it tends to have a very good blood supply, which means that it tends to spread before somebody ever knows that it's there," Bolin said, "It is very frequently attributed to muscle strains when it finally does get around to giving symptoms.

"This one under the microscope is more like a cluster of grapes surrounded by blood supply. That structure makes it unique among all sarcomas. ... That makes the treatment of it a little bit more tricky."

Calloway's cancer does not respond well to chemotherapy or radiation, said Bolin, so interferon is the best chance for remission. Calloway gives himself a shot of the medication into the calf muscle three times a week.

"It's using your body's immune system to kind of attack the tumor," Bolin said. "You don't really get rid of the tumor as much as you kind of get the tumor to decide not to grow any larger. We're basically hoping we can bring this into remission, shrink the tumor down some perhaps."

Calloway is being treated by Dr. William Ward, a professor of orthopedic oncology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Ward, who is out of the country and was not available for comment Tuesday, said in a statement that "this is an extremely rare tumor."

Sarcoma is a cancerous tumor of connective or supportive tissue, such as bone, muscle and blood vessels. According to the health Web site WebMD.com, there are about 15 to 80 cases of alveolar soft part sarcoma nationally each year.

Calloway said he has no family history of cancer. Calloway said he has muscle aches, gets tired and has shortness of breath. The symptoms come and go, he said.

"It depends on the day I take my shot, when I take it," he said.

Calloway averaged 9.3 minutes, 1.4 points and 1.8 rebounds last season.

"It's been the best medicine that we've given him, is giving him basketball back and letting him have that opportunity to play," Doolan said.

It is not known how long Calloway will need interferon; he next meets with Wade in late September.