Cancer can originate nearly everywhere in the body and spread. Why do we never !
Question:
Cancer can originate nearly everywhere in the body and spread. Why do we never hear of heart cancer?
Looking for real...not silly...unless silly is real.
Answers:
Heart cancer is rare but occurs as both a primary cancer and as a secondary cancer. Just because you have never heard about it does not mean it doesn't exist.
This is one of those questions that people ask in here all the time. So, here is the answer reposted:
Heart cancer is rare, but I know that it occurs because people in the Sarcoma group where I go have Angiosarcoma. It is a rare disease so not many people have heard about it (also referred to as Cardiac Sarcoma or Angiosarcoma of the Heart).
Cardiac Sarcoma
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic282.ht...
Primary cardiac tumors.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...
With heart angiosarcoma the "patients can be asymptomatic for a long time or they can present with symptoms mimicking acute pericarditis, pulmonary embolism, or tricuspid stenosis."
Image of Angiosarcoma of the Heart
http://library.med.utah.edu/webpath/cow/...
Cancer BackUp: Angiosarcoma of the Heart
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/defaul...
"Angiosarcomas represent 1% of all sarcomas. One-third of the cases occur on the skin, one-fourth of the cases occur in the soft tissue or organs such as breast, liver, heart and lungs." - Sarcoma Alliance. http://www.sarcomaalliance.com/...
Other rare types of malignant heart tumor includes pericardial mesothelioma and a primary heart lymphoma (which can occur in people with AIDS).
Secondary cancers (originate elsewhere in the body) can also metatasize to the heart including lung and breast carcinoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, renal cancer, malignant melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma, and sometimes Kaposi's Sarcoma.