Experience on surgical treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the stomach

In spite of their rarity, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) represent a complex clinical problem, mainly diagnostic and therapeutic, for their unpredictable biological course and their long-term prognosis, the most involved site being the stomach. Although a great number of tyrosine-kinase inhibitors has been developed for blocking their proliferative pathways (constitutive CD117 and PDGFRa activation), surgical treatment still remains the only curative one. Nevertheless, their particular non-lymphatic spread and their tendency to peritoneal seeding have emphasized technical issues that are still greatly debated. The definition of the best surgical procedure aiming at the complete R0 resection of the tumor has changed in the recent years and, with the improvement of laparoscopic techniques, the minimally invasive approach of gastric GIST has become feasible in most cases. In this paper we present our experience on surgical treatment of 43 gastric GISTs observed from 2001 to 2008 taken from our case study (75 patients from 1994). The risk class, treatment and long-term follow-up (mean 36 months) has been analyzed. All patients underwent a surgical procedure; 10 of them were also treated with molecular tyrosine-kinase inhibitors as adjuvant treatment. Overall survival at 60 months was 89.3%, with a disease-free survival of 87.68%.