Cardiac angiosarcoma: what you need to know about this heart cancer

Cardiac angiosarcoma, a heart cancer that mainly affects young people

What is cardiac angiosarcoma?

Cardiac angiosarcoma (or angiosarcoma of the heart) is a malignant tumor (read: cancerous) of vascular origin (read: it develops from blood vessels). The tumor most often develops from the right atrium of the heart. Cardiac angiosarcoma therefore belongs to the family of primary cardiac tumours: these tend to affect young individuals, and may be responsible for respiratory disorders (dyspnea) and/or pain in the chest (retrosternal pain). Unfortunately, to date, there is no effective treatment for cardiac angiosarcoma. When the tumor is still localized, surgery can be proposed. In 2016, a treatment combining propranolol (an antihypertensive drug) and metronomic chemotherapy (a specific chemotherapy characterized by more frequent but also lower doses) nevertheless gave encouraging results.

The prognosis for patients with cardiac angiosarcoma rarely exceeds 16 months. Virgil Abloh, meanwhile, will have continued to create until the end.

Sources: Inserm Journal of Cardiology

Source of the article: https://www.topsante.com/medecine/cancers/angiosarcome-cardiaque-ce-qu-il-faut-savoir-sur-ce-cancer-du-coeur-647220