Can cardiac rhabdomyomas be cured?

Cardiac rhabdomyoma is a relatively rare primary cardiac tumor with skeletal muscle differentiation. It is a benign heart tumor with a relatively high incidence in children, especially newborns. As parents, don't worry too much about this disease because it is highly self-limiting and tends to resolve spontaneously. For more serious patients, surgery can be used for treatment.

Can cardiac rhabdomyomas be cured? Cardiac rhabdomyomas tend to regress spontaneously. Studies have found that the tumor will stop growing or shrink relatively in size in the late pregnancy. In a small number of cases, there is still a tendency for the tumor to continue growing in the uterus. After birth, most children's cardiac rhabdomyomas will partially or completely regress during infancy, so conservative treatment is generally recommended. Drug treatment or surgical resection is only necessary when the rhabdomyoma causes hemodynamic obstruction or cardiac rhythm disturbances that affect cardiac function. The main goals of surgery are to relieve hemodynamic obstruction, protect ventricular and valvular function, and prevent damage to the conduction system. Radical resection of the tumor is not necessary and is dangerous. Intracavitary rhabdomyomas with obvious symptoms are suitable for surgery, but age or the presence of tuberous sclerosis complex is not a contraindication for surgery. Although rhabdomyomas have no capsule, their boundaries are clear and they can be completely removed surgically. Surgery becomes difficult only when the tumor involves the main branches of the coronary arteries, the valve annulus, or the conduction system.

Cause: Cardiac rhabdomyoma is considered to be a hamartoma of the myocardium rather than a true tumor. It may be derived from fetal cardiac myoblasts. Because many cases also have lesions such as tuberous sclerosis of the brain, it is considered to be a tumor-like hyperplasia of the myocardium. One-third to one-half of primary cardiac rhabdomyomas in children are related to tuberous sclerosis, which is a chromosomal dominant inheritance and may be complicated by brain hamartomas, facial sebaceous adenomas, and renal angiomyolipomas. Recently, some scholars believe that cardiac rhabdomyomas may be caused by delayed or failed apoptosis in part of the normal replication process of the heart.