Does the heart ever develop cancer?

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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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Anonymous 0 Comments

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).

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