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Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Patients Receiving Surgery with or Without TKI Therapy: A Retrospective Real-World Study

Authors
Zhentian Ni1，Lingquan Wang1

Affiliations

  1. Department of General Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine

Introduction
To retrospectively analyze the clinical characteristics of patients undergoing surgical treatment for gastrointestinal stromal tumors(GISTs) in Ruijin Hospital and explore the relevant prognosis clinical factors after surgical treatment.

Methods
We screened out 1015 patients with GISTs diagnosed and treated during 2010 to 2019. We performed univariate analysis by the log-rank test and multivariate analysis by COX regression. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of the whole group.

Results
All 1015 patients in the whole group received radical surgery, and the proportion of patients with high, intermediate, and low risk was 31.1%, 21.7% and 47.3%. Among the 480 low-risk patients, surgery could achieve radical therapy; only the Ki-67 index was related to DFS and OS (DFS: p = 0.032, OS: p = 0.009) among the 140 intermediate-risk patients with tumors located in the stomach, whether received Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) therapy did not affect the prognosis of patients (DFS: p = 0.716, OS: p = 0.848). Among the 331 high-risk patients, those with non-gastric tumors (HR 1.55, 95% CI 1.19–2.00, p < 0.001), tumor diameter > 10 cm (HR 2.63, 95% CI 2.09–4.03, p < 0.001), as well as high-risk patients with mitotic rate > 10/50 HPF (HR 2.74, 95% CI 2.00–3.76, p < 0.001), the overall prognosis was obviously worse than that of other patients. For some high-risk patients, prolonged postoperative imatinib therapy could significantly improve the survival of patients (HR 0.43, 95% CI 0.15–0.66, p < 0.001).

Conclusion
For most GIST patients, surgery can be curative, but in intermediate-risk patients, the Ki-67 index and postoperative TKI treatment are closely related to prognosis. For intermediate-risk patients whose primary tumor is the stomach, the value of TKI-targeted therapy after surgery seem be not necessary in our study. However, for some high-risk patients, the prognosis of patients can be improved by appropriately prolonging the treatment time of TKI.