Why we don’t get Heart Cancer?
We all heard of cancers of the brain, blood, lymph nodes, lungs, bone, and every other bodily organ, part, or system imaginable. Have you heard about heart cancer?
Heart long symbolized as the root of loving emotion are somehow immune to the dreaded disease. Tumors occur in the heart also, but are not as common as other parts, so don't hear about them.
Malignant heart tumors, known as rhabdomyosarcomas, are extremely rare. Sarcoma is a type of tumor that originates in the soft tissues of the body, a rhabdomyosarcoma occurs in the muscle tissue of the heart. Their incidence is estimated at less than 0.1 percent, based on a study of more than 12,000 autopsies, which identified only seven cases of any kind of primary cardiac tumor. Most cancers found in the heart are secondaries, have come from elsewhere in the body.
Cancer begins when cells start to grow out of control. This is due to damaged DNA, the genetic material carried in the nucleus of each and every cell. Normally, a cell repairs any damaged DNA, or simply dies, but cancer cells do not repair or die. Instead, they divide and make many more abnormal cells with damaged DNA. Another unusual property possessed by cancer cells is they are able to grow and invade other tissues. Normal cells cannot do the same.
Cancers in the heart have come from “elsewhere in the body,” means an invasion. The cancer began somewhere else in the body and it has infiltrated the heart. This is called secondary tumor. The most common secondary tumors spreading to the heart “come from the lung, from the esophagus, and from the liver, and the stomach. Even nests of leukemia cells form tumors in the heart. More importantly, all of these different types of tumors “usually go to the right side of the heart. That’s where the blood enters the heart, on the right side.
A tumor is a tumor. How do doctors know where a tumor originates especially when a new tumor appearing years later in a part of the body far from the original cancer site? When a new tumor appears, its cells are identical to those of the original tumor. So if a person had pancreatic cancer, and it spread to the brain, the tumor appearing in their brain, when viewed through a microscope, would look nothing like the tumor of a person with brain cancer, the cells of this brain tumor would look identical to pancreatic tumor cells.
If secondary tumors invade the heart, why is it so rare for primary tumors to develop there?
Genetic fate is sealed. One receives half the genes from mothers and half from father. The gene expression can be modified throughout the life and that can create cancer. Environment affects which genes become expressed (activated) as well as how frequently they become activated.
Carcinogens coming from the food and environment are one of the many factors that influence which genes are activated or not. Human body has some defenses against these contaminants, in the form of detoxifying enzymes, and the body is supported by micronutrients which turn on tumor suppressor genes, dangerous toxins found in the fat tissue still modify the genes, which can result in cancers forming in the organs of the body, especially those containing fatty tissue. A lot of toxins are found in breast tissue, because there are a lot of fat cells there. And toxins are found wherever there is the most fat. This is why the heart is so exceptional. There’s not much of fatty tissue in the heart. The heart is enclosed in a membrane, the pericardium. This fluid-filled sac itself become engulfed by cancer, with tumors metastasizing to the outside of it, but still it does its job of protecting our precious hearts.
So, even though cancer can happen anywhere there are cells, your heart remains virtually immune due to its muscular nature and the assistance of the pericardium. Smart heart.
Heart long symbolized as the root of loving emotion are somehow immune to the dreaded disease. Tumors occur in the heart also, but are not as common as other parts, so don't hear about them.
Malignant heart tumors, known as rhabdomyosarcomas, are extremely rare. Sarcoma is a type of tumor that originates in the soft tissues of the body, a rhabdomyosarcoma occurs in the muscle tissue of the heart. Their incidence is estimated at less than 0.1 percent, based on a study of more than 12,000 autopsies, which identified only seven cases of any kind of primary cardiac tumor. Most cancers found in the heart are secondaries, have come from elsewhere in the body.
Cancer begins when cells start to grow out of control. This is due to damaged DNA, the genetic material carried in the nucleus of each and every cell. Normally, a cell repairs any damaged DNA, or simply dies, but cancer cells do not repair or die. Instead, they divide and make many more abnormal cells with damaged DNA. Another unusual property possessed by cancer cells is they are able to grow and invade other tissues. Normal cells cannot do the same.
Cancers in the heart have come from “elsewhere in the body,” means an invasion. The cancer began somewhere else in the body and it has infiltrated the heart. This is called secondary tumor. The most common secondary tumors spreading to the heart “come from the lung, from the esophagus, and from the liver, and the stomach. Even nests of leukemia cells form tumors in the heart. More importantly, all of these different types of tumors “usually go to the right side of the heart. That’s where the blood enters the heart, on the right side.
A tumor is a tumor. How do doctors know where a tumor originates especially when a new tumor appearing years later in a part of the body far from the original cancer site? When a new tumor appears, its cells are identical to those of the original tumor. So if a person had pancreatic cancer, and it spread to the brain, the tumor appearing in their brain, when viewed through a microscope, would look nothing like the tumor of a person with brain cancer, the cells of this brain tumor would look identical to pancreatic tumor cells.
If secondary tumors invade the heart, why is it so rare for primary tumors to develop there?
Genetic fate is sealed. One receives half the genes from mothers and half from father. The gene expression can be modified throughout the life and that can create cancer. Environment affects which genes become expressed (activated) as well as how frequently they become activated.
Carcinogens coming from the food and environment are one of the many factors that influence which genes are activated or not. Human body has some defenses against these contaminants, in the form of detoxifying enzymes, and the body is supported by micronutrients which turn on tumor suppressor genes, dangerous toxins found in the fat tissue still modify the genes, which can result in cancers forming in the organs of the body, especially those containing fatty tissue. A lot of toxins are found in breast tissue, because there are a lot of fat cells there. And toxins are found wherever there is the most fat. This is why the heart is so exceptional. There’s not much of fatty tissue in the heart. The heart is enclosed in a membrane, the pericardium. This fluid-filled sac itself become engulfed by cancer, with tumors metastasizing to the outside of it, but still it does its job of protecting our precious hearts.
So, even though cancer can happen anywhere there are cells, your heart remains virtually immune due to its muscular nature and the assistance of the pericardium. Smart heart.
Dr. Jacqueline Barrientos,
Assistant professor, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine
Dr. Mitchell Gaynor,
Assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College
Assistant professor, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine
Dr. Mitchell Gaynor,
Assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College
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