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 A gastric Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumour (GIST) with typical deep ulcers |
GIST (Abbr) Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumour, a sarcoma (a tumour arising from the connective tissue) of the gastrointestinal tract. GIST is rare, only about 1-3% of all malignant tumours in the gastrointestinal canal are of this kind. About two thirds of these tumours occur in the stomach, one fifth in the small intestine and one tenth in the oesophagus. GISTs are often benign, but larger tumours can cause liver and peritoneal metastases. Bleeding causing anaemia is the main symptom. Nausea, vomiting and weight loss are other common symptoms. Diagnose is most often made by endoscopy and biopsies taken during this examination. Surgical therapy is curative if the disease is not disseminated. These tumours have recently been found to respond very favourably to treatment with Imatinib (Glivec). Tumours formerly called leiomyomas and leiomyosarcomas are considered to be GISTs.
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