It seems like most cancers are organ-specific (lung, ovary, skin, etc) but I’ve never heard of heart cancer. Is there a reason why?
Edit: Wow! Thanks for all the interesting feedback and comments! I had no idea my question would spark such a fascinating discussion! I learned so much!
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Cancer more or less only develops in cells that are dividing. And then mostly so in cells that are (1) dividing a lot and (2) exposed to some sort of toxins (the sun, smoke etc). Heart muscle cells do not divide at all, and the other cells in the heart only divide very sparsely, plus they are not really exposed to any kinds of toxins.
But still, they can become cancerous, it is very rare, but not impossible. It’s called cardiac sarcoma and mostly come from the connective tissue of the heart (so not from the heart muscle cells themselves, but from the random other cells in the heart that help them).
Heart cancer is a thing, but it is comparatively rare. A simplified explanation is that, because cancer happens when cells accumulate enough mutations throughout their replication cycles and start growing abnormally and uncontrollably, the less cell division/turnover a tissue has, the less likely it is to develop cancer. The tissues in the heart do indeed have a lower turnover than others.
Because of this, secondary heart tumors (caused by metastasized cancer coming from another part of the body) are much more common than primary tumors (caused be the heart tissue itself becoming cancerous). So, in the rare event when a tumor does appear in the heart (and many of them can actually be benign), it’s around 100 times more likely that it came from cancer spreading from somewhere else than starting from the heart itself.
It’s rare, but it happens. My cousin died in his 40’s from Cardiac Sarcoma. It’s a type of angioscarcoma (cancer of the blood vessels).
Edited: “if” and “of” aren’t the same word.
Non cancerous growths on the heart do happen. An atrial myxoma is an example (these are extremely rare so when we found my mums I think every medical appt she had until it was removed they had every doctor they could find looking at her ecg).
Someone who knows their way around these better than I do might be able to tell you how the few types of growths that start in the heart are different cell types than heart vs other cells.
I’m a vet, so I don’t know about people, but dogs get Hemangiosarcoma of the right auricle (a portion of the heart) with some reasonable frequency. It’s technically a tumor of blood vessels, but it just happens to show up in the heart. More commonly it shows up in the spleen and liver, though.
So, is it impossible for one cell organisms to develop cancer?
My dog developed a blood cancer that did cause a tumor to form in his heart. Within a month of becoming symptomatic he passed… only 9
Yes. King Cut Off Their Heads had a wife whose remains showed signs of cardiac cancer. The wife from Spain, I think.
I don’t know human med as well, but many forms of cancer can and do occur on or about the heart, though as another comment mentioned, typically not of the heart muscle itself.
Hemangiosarcoma is “relatively” common in the veterinary world, as well as a number of cancers that metastasize (originate elsewhere, but cancerous cells migrate through the body and form tumors elsewhere ) to the heart.
Rate of division of the cells is a major factor as mentioned above. Often Hemangiosarcomas on the heart will rupture, bleeding into the pericardium (sack around the heart) and constrict the heart’s ability to function leading to fatigue and death depending on the rate of bleeding. In this case it’s not really a “heart cancer” but a “blood cancer” and can happen anywhere, but on the heart is commonly rapidly fatal, and is “fairly regularly” seen by my spouse as a Veterinary Pathologist.
They also can happen elsewhere, and rupture, but may not cause as rapid of death, as they’re “only” bleeding internally, not constricting the heart function.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemangiosarcoma
I’m sure one of the old members of the band Kiss died of heart cancer.
I don’t even like that band, it was just the term “heart cancer” that stuck with me because it sounded horrendous
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