By Drs. Sebastian Bauer, West German Cancer Center, University of Essen, Germany and Jonathan Fletcher, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, LRG Research Team Researchers talk plainly about microGISTs, how this cancer develops and what all [...]
Many new cancer drugs are entering clinical practice and clinical trials. Many GIST patients are no longer responding to Gleevec or Sutent and thus are looking for clinical trials. Understanding strategies and grouping these new drugs into classes with other similar drugs may help patients understand some of their choices.
Learn about various mutation types. There are several types of gene mutations that can lead to Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors. These include KIT mutations, PDGFRA mutations and BRAF and SDH mutations. As each of these involves [...]
Learn about the medicare lottery. It is the system devised to implement the Medicare Replacement Drug Demonstration that will cover some oral drugs before Medicare’s comprehensive prescription drug program began in 2006. This lottery is [...]
Co-Existing Conditions Co-existing conditions are medical illnesses or problematic conditions that a person has along with cancer, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or depression. These conditions often influence how a person responds to treatment, [...]
NOTE: We have some specific information about some drugs on the "Drug Interactions" lists. When we have specific or detailed information about a drug interaction, it will appear on this page. Note that for the [...]
An annual meeting where GIST patient organizations from different countries throughout the world get together to discuss their common interest - finding a cure for GIST.
Mutational testing determines whether you have a mutation present in your tumor, and what genotype it is. Examples include Exon 11 or 9 (for KIT positive tumors), Platelet Driven Growth Factor Receptor Alpha (PDGFRA), or [...]
January 6th, 2011 - By Jerry Call, LRG Science CoordinatorThe first ever clinical trial specifically for the PDGFRA D842V mutation has been announced by Arog pharmaceuticals. The phase II trial is scheduled to open in [...]
In presentations at the 2010 American Society of Clinical Oncologists conference (ASCO), Dr. Ronald DeMatteo, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Dr. Chris Corless, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), presented new data from the Z9001 adjuvant Gleevec trial. As Dr. DeMatteo noted, the presentations were geared towards answering two questions: Who should get adjuvant Gleevec and how long should they get it for? While the presentations went a long way towards answering who should get adjuvant Gleevec, there appears to be much that we do not know about how long they should get it for. Other ongoing trials may help shed more light on this question.
