Heart tumors, muscle disorder may have link

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http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/166156-2054-010.html

.... Doctors should look more broadly for signs of such tumors, which aren't

cancerous but are dangerous because they can break off and cause strokes,

researchers say.

" This may be more widespread than we had ever thought, " ...

They studied 18 members of a Belgian family who had a muscle disorder that

caused spotty skin pigmentation, tight or clenched hands and feet, and an

inability to open their jaws fully. Three also had heart tumors called

myxomas, which affect one of every 100,000 people each year.

No one had connected such heart tumors to muscle disorders, but Basson

suspected a link. He surprisingly found it in myosin, a group of proteins

with an array of important jobs, including making muscles contract.

The gene defect Basson identified is very similar to some of the mutations

that can cause sudden cardiac death ...