Cardiac Tumor: Classification, Symptoms, Treatment

The heart muscle is not so often affectedMalignant tumors, like other internal organs. Perhaps the reason for this is that it feeds on blood better than the rest of the body. Exchange processes here are faster, which means a much stronger defensive reaction.

Tumor of the heart can have a primary form andsecondary. The first group includes benign and malignant neoplasms. The second refers to all metastasized cancer cells that approach the heart muscle along the lymphatic pathways and the bloodstream from the affected organs.

Types of tumors

By the form of the altered cellular structure of the tumor of the heart can be:

• benign;
• malignant.

Let us consider each species in more detail.

Benign heart tumor

This species is primary and originates in cardiac tissues. This includes:

1. Mixomu is a frequent kind of cardiactumors, is detected in half the cases of all diagnosed benign formations. It is noted that the hereditary factor plays a large role in the predisposition to the onset of the tumor. The myxoma structure can be hard, slippery or loose. With a loose structure of the tumor, the most dangerous because of the possible malignant degeneration of tissues.
2. Papillary fibroelastoma. It is considered the second most frequent type of neoplasm. It is located on the valve papillae (more often aortic or mitral), prevents their full closure at the time of contraction of the ventricles. When identifying the causes of valvular insufficiency is often diagnosed. Fibroelastoma has a favorable prognosis provided timely repair of damaged valves.
3. Rabdomiomu. The most often diagnosed in childhood, located in the left ventricle, causes a violation of the conductivity of the myocardium. Symptoms of a tumor of the heart of this type is the appearance on ECG of blockades and disturbance of the heart rhythm. If the rhabdomyoma is located near the sinus node, then severe rhythm disturbances are not excluded, or even cardiac arrest may occur.
4. Fibromo. In most cases, it is detected in childhood, is a tumor process in connective tissue. Can lead to stenosis of the opening between the ventricle and the atrium or to deformation of the valve. Sometimes, with external location on the pericardium, pericarditis is possible. Classification of heart tumors does not end there.
5. Hemangioma. It is extremely rare and does not cause changes in the work of the heart. Only if it sprouts into a sinus node, then a heart rhythm failure may occur, in severe cases, a fatal outcome.
6. Lipoma. It can be found in any part of the myocardium. Does not manifest itself at small sizes. Depending on the site of localization, a greatly expanded lipoma provokes various cardiac failures. It is not impossible to degenerate into a liposarcoma.

Intrapericardial tumor is less common than other localization. Most often this tumor is located in the right ventricle of the heart.

Any tumor of the heart, if it is benign,develops in rare cases and is detected before serious violations in the myocardium. Severe heart failure or cardiac arrest is possible only if a person continues to ignore the symptomatology. This can not be tolerated, therefore, it is timely to visit doctors and undergo a comprehensive examination of cardiologists.

Malignant tumors

These tumors are extremely dangerous. Tumor of the heart in the primary form is extremely rare. As a rule, malignant process develops with metastasis. By the nature of cancer cells, this can be:

• angiosarcoma (similar to vascular epithelium in structure);
• rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer in the striated muscles, sometimes sprouting through the entire myocardium, causes symptoms of a heart attack)
• fibrotic cancerous histiocytoma (jelly-like oncogenesis, differing in that it grows into surrounding tissues);
• liposarcoma.

Other cancers are possible, having a similar structure with the organ from which metastasis has gone.

Metastases more often affects the pericardium, less often they are in other parts of the myocardium. From the localization of the tumor process depends on the manifestation of signs of heart damage.

Causes of a malignant tumor of the heart

As a primary tumor, heart cancer develops directly from the tissues of the heart muscle itself. But it happens in very rare cases.

Much more often the tumor has a secondary formmalignant pathology. From the affected organs with blood in the heart fall cancer cells. The cardiovascular system passes through the entire body, and this facilitates the metastases way.

Localized in the gastrointestinal tract and inpelvic organs malignant tumors can lead to a rapid uncontrolled division of the affected cells. As a result of this metastases, new goals are quickly achieved, unfortunately, the heart also belongs here.

Now all the reasons for the defeat of the heart muscle by cancer cells are not fully known yet. But some of them include:

• surgery on the heart muscle due to trauma or for other reasons;
• blood clots;
• atherosclerosis of the brain and vascular system;
• hereditary predisposition by genotype;
• constant stress and emotions undermine the immune system and weaken the body.

What kinds of primary formations are there?

To the most common malignantneoplasms are referred to as heart sarcoma, which is diagnosed more often than lymphoma. This pathology affects a person in middle age. This group of diseases includes angiosarcoma, undifferentiated sarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocyte, leiomyosarcoma.

The left atrium is mostly affected, due tocompression of the tissues of the tumor with a mitral orifice. As a rule, all this leads to heart failure, the spread of extensive metastases to the lungs.

Quite rare in the male half of the population meets mesothelioma. With this tumor, the brain, spine, and nearby soft tissues suffer from metastases.

Consider the main symptoms of a heart tumor.

Symptomatology

At first, the disease is asymptomatic, and this is the main danger of heart cancer. The patient may not even guess that he has oncology. Common symptoms of indisposition include:

• subfebrile periodic temperature;
• fatigue and weakness;
• soreness of the joints;
• sharp causeless loss in weight.

But such signs are characterized by manydisease, so they can confuse the sick. He can not go to an oncologist or cardiologist for a long time. Sometimes the diagnosis is really very difficult, even specialists can not understand it.

The location of the neoplasm affects the exact signs of the heart tumor. Also, the history of origin, primary or secondary origin is important.

What diagnostics of neoplasm should be performed?

Neoplasm is characterized by the following symptoms:

• increase in cardiac muscle in size by ultrasound;
• pain in the heart and sternum;
• an impending arrhythmia;
• compression of the vena cava with a growing tumor, which can lead to edema, pain, dyspnea;
• tamponade of the heart, manifested by a decrease in the striking force of the heart muscle; congestion between the leaves of the pericardium fluid;
• thickened fingers;
• the appearance of swelling and swelling on the face;
• causeless eruptions on various areas of the body;
• numbness in the fingers;
• edema on the lower limbs;
• fatigue at low loads;
• fainting, dizziness, headaches.

Pathology can affect the contractility of the heart, it becomes weakened, heart failure rapidly develops. The patient suffers suffocation.

Naturally, this affects not the best way on the course of the disease, the possibility of a happy cure becomes less and less. There are metastatic symptoms.

From regional organs that are affected by cancer, metastasis of malignant cells occurs. These organs include the thyroid gland, the tops of the kidneys, lungs and mammary glands in women.

When cancer is affected by cancer, melanomas and lymphomasthese consequences are possible for the cardiac muscle. The tumor of the heart develops rapidly, after which the pericardium, representing the membrane of the heart, joins it.

It is characterized by the following symptoms:

• severe shortness of breath;
• inflammation of the pericardium in acute form;
• arrhythmic phenomena;
• sharply enlarged heart on the X-ray;
• noise of the systole.

Symptomatics and X-ray research areNot all diagnostic methods that are used to detect heart cancer. Still apply computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of the heart muscle. The parameters of the echocardiogram are used additionally.

Most often, time is lost and diagnosed is a serious stage of the sarcoma of the heart with metastases to nearby organs, mainly the lungs and the brain.

What is the treatment for a heart tumor?

Methods of therapy

In medical statistics there is no information on the practical cure for a malignant tumor of the heart. There is only a palliative method of therapy.

Due to complete organ damage andthe developing process of metastasis, surgical intervention is excluded. Patients are prescribed chemotherapy and radiation, which will somewhat ease the patient's condition. Surgery for heart tumors is also under way.

We treat the results will be, if we carry out prevention, time to see a doctor, be tested and start treatment in the early stages of the disease.

It is necessary to work on strengthening the immune system, because it is able to protect the body from many diseases.

Cancer cells are not introduced into the body from outside, butbut they are actively formed from their own cells and have a huge aggressive force of aggressive attack on healthy cells. About foreign structures, immune cells receive information that is in transfer factors.

If these cells are small, the immune structures will not have enough information about the overtaken danger. And new cells of the immune system do not know what they need to do and what to protect from.

Surgery

How are cardiac surgery performed? Before the non-invasive visualization of the heart was developed, the valving was considered to be an indication for surgery. Because the diagnosis was of little informative.

Now thanks to ultrasound, not a single patient with a heart formation was operated without visualization. With the help of CT and MRI, data on the characteristics of tissues and the spread of infiltration are obtained.

Medial sternotomy is a typical access tobenign tumors. In this connection, extracorporeal circulation is connected with two-cavity drainage. At operations on heart recommended quiet manipulations in connection with the fact that the majority of intracavitary cardiac tumors are fragile. Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography is used to determine the localization of the tumor, open the heart cavity, direct the cannula, and monitor the integrity of the tumor during the operation. Wide surgical access is a prerequisite for resection of a single tumor block. Aspirated blood surrounding the tumor does not return to the extracorporeal circulation. This is necessary to prevent possible dissemination of malignant cells.

Forecast

The prognosis of the disease depends on the type of cells and the extent to which the operation was performed:

• Life expectancy of cancer patients is on average from two to seven years (this is affected by the rate of metastasis of the body and the location of new metastases).
• The prognosis is influenced by donor-recipient compatibility when the donor heart is implanted or implanted. If the conditions are favorable, then such patients live no more than ten years.
• In benign formations and their removalthe prognosis is favorable, in 95% of cases there is a stable remission if you follow the regular intake of supporting medications and medical recommendations.

If the treatment is symptomatic, the patient will live from seven months to two years.

Unfortunately, heart failure is diagnosedtumors late, when there are already serious violations in the body. But even if a person has a cancer of the heart, then do not succumb to despair. The survival statistics are approximate, and patients with accurate adherence to medical recommendations after removal of the heart tumor may live more than the years indicated in the forecast.