Glivec Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Glivec, including details on gleevec, imatinib, cancer, treatment, side-effects.

Factors associated with disease progression in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors in the pre-imatinib era.

Iesalnieks I, Rümmele P, Dietmaier W, Jantsch T, Zülke C, Schlitt HJ, Hofstädter F, Anthuber M

Department of Surgery, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.

The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of survival in 38 patients with curatively resected gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs). The tumor was located in the stomach in 23 cases, the small bowel in 13, and the colon in 2. In 23 patients (61%), a mutation in exon 11 of the kit gene was detected. In 7 cases, all small gastric tumors, a mutation in the platelet-derived growth factor receptor a (PDGFRA) gene was detected. The overall 5-year survival rate was 70%. In 9 patients, GISTs relapsed, leading to an actuarial 5-year disease-free survival of 78%. By multivariate analysis, the presence of distant metastases, the proliferative (MIB-1) index, and deletional mutation in codons 557 and/or 558 of kit exon 11 correlated significantly with poor outcome. None of the PDGFRA mutant GISTs relapsed. These findings suggest a strong relationship between various tyrosine kinase receptor mutations and survival outcome in patients with GISTs.

Published 5 October 2005 in Am J Clin Pathol, 124(5): 740-8.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Glivec Research Today. All Rights Reserved.