a post shared on his official instagram account explained that he had made a deliberate choice to keep his diagnosis a secret.
angiosarcoma is a rare form of soft tissue sarcoma, a broad term used to describe cancers that start in soft tissue like muscle, tendons, fat, lymph and blood vessels, and nerves. angiosarcoma is a cancer that affects the lining of blood vessels and lymph vessels, according to the mayo clinic . when it occurs, it’s usually on the skin.
but cardiac angiosarcoma, the form of angiosarcoma that impacts the heart, is even more rare. according to johns hopkins university , it involves a tumour that starts in the heart, or starts somewhere else and spreads to the heart. most cardiac angiosarcomas occur in the heart’s right atrium, and obstruct blood flowing in and out of the heart. that process can be quite painful, the mayo clinic says.
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it’s generally treated with chemotherapy and radiation. there aren’t many statistics available about cardiac angiosarcoma because it’s so specific and so rare, but the prognosis is generally “poor,” according to a 2015 study . the five-year survival rate for non-metastatic angiosarcoma — meaning a cancer that didn’t spread beyond its initial area — is about 35 per cent. researchers blamed the cancer’s “aggressiveness and multifocality” for that low number.
unfortunately, “once a cardiac sarcoma has progressed to the point that symptoms begin to occur, it has often metastasized (spread) to other parts of the body,” according to johns hopkins . that means it’s very difficult to offer effective treatment.
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angiosarcomas make up about 1 to 2 per cent of all sarcomas , which, as a group, make up about one to two per cent of all cancers .
for abloh, “clothes were not garments,” new york times fashion editor vanessa friedman wrote , but “totems of identity that sat at the nexus of art, music, politics and philosophy. he was a master of using irony, reference and the self-aware wink (plus the digital world) to re-contextualize the familiar and give it an aura of cultural currency.”
maija kappler is a reporter and editor with healthing. she can be reached at mkappler@postmedia.com .