Profile of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).

BACKGROUND: There is an improvement on the GIST treatment in last decade due to biomolecular research and adjuvant therapy with tyrosine kinases inibitors. However, both modalities of treatment rarely are available in Brazilian public hospital.

AIM: Evaluate GIST patients profile in public oncologic hospital.

METHODS: A retrospective study was made on patients with GIST diagnosed and treated between 2001 and 2013.

RESULTS: Sixty-nine patients were included, mean age 59 years with slight predominance in females (51%). The main symptom was abdominal pain associated with incidental imaging finding. The occurrence of other associated neoplasm was in 28.8% of cases. The positivity of CD117 was 97.1%. The most frequent location was the stomach in 55.1% of cases. The R0 resection was possible in 63.8% and the recurrence rate was 20.3 %, with liver and peritoneum the main affected sites. Overall survival in the whole sample was 71%. Free survival rate of disease was 64%. The use of imatinib was limited to patients with residual disease (unresectable disease, R2 and R1 resection), metastatic disease or recurrence.

CONCLUSION: In order to improve GIST treatment is necessary to add the biomolecular analysis to risk stratification. However, for this to occur, incentive in biomolecular research is required, to increase the possibility of patient survival.