You are here:
INVADING AND METASTASIZING CARDIAC HEMANGIOENDOTHELIAL NEOPLASMS IN A COHORT OF THE FISH RIVULUS MARMORATUS: UNUSUALLY HIGH PREVALENCE, HISTOPATHOLOGY, AND POSSIBLE ETIOLOGIES
Citation:
Couch, J. INVADING AND METASTASIZING CARDIAC HEMANGIOENDOTHELIAL NEOPLASMS IN A COHORT OF THE FISH RIVULUS MARMORATUS: UNUSUALLY HIGH PREVALENCE, HISTOPATHOLOGY, AND POSSIBLE ETIOLOGIES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-95/371.
Description:
An unusually high, unprecedented prevalence of cardiac hemangioendotheliosarcomas (HES) and hemangioendotheliomas (HE) was found in a cohort of the small, teleost fish Rivulus marmoratus. he neoplasms occurred in 50/220 fish (22.7%) used in a carcinogenicity study of butyrated hydroxyanisole (BHA) fed in a lyophilized chicken liver diet for up to six months. he cardiac neoplasms occurred in approximately equal numbers of both control (fed chicken liver but not exposed to BHA) and exposed (fed 0.8% BHA in chicken liver) fish. he neoplasms occurred in the bulbus artefious and ventricle (accompanied by an intense epicarditis), and in some cases in the gills. he HES consisted of atypical, spindle or round endothelial cells that formed patent or non-patent vascular channels in the tumor masses. ncipient neoplasms occurred on/in the semilunar valves and their cells appeared to invade the adjacent walls of the bulbus and/or the ventricle. he gill lesions represented probable metastatic neoplasms. typical endothelial cells exfoliated from the edges of cardiac neoplasms and were found in the lumina of the ventricle or bulbus. ish examined from the original colony in the laboratory and from the wild had no neoplasms. ossible causes include: inadvertent transmission of an avian sarcoma virus via the chicken liver; activation of a latent fish sarcoma virus; modulation of protooncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in the fish; chemical carcinogen exposure in some unknown manner or a combination of two or more of the preceding factors. urther studies are underway to determine etiology of the neoplasm and to evaluate Rivulus as possible model organism for study of this relatively rare cardiac neoplasm.