What to Expect When a Tumor Has Spread
While surgery is the backbone of treatment for localized GIST, in the context of metastatic disease, treatment generally relies on medical therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as imatinib. Surgery is used predominantly to optimize their efficacy. This webinar will review options for therapy when patients are diagnosed with metastatic disease at the time of their initial diagnosis, during observation after initial resection of a GIST, and when metastatic GIST is resistant to imatinib. We will discuss the role that mutational status and drug toxicities may play in determining the optimal therapy for individual patients.
About the Presenter:
Dr. Aimee Crago, Surgical Oncologist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. Crago earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge as a British Marshall Scholar and her MD in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology before training in surgery and surgical oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She joined the MSKCC faculty in 2010 as member of the Gastric and Mixed Tumor Service and the Sarcoma Disease Management Team, and now serves as Associate Attending Surgeon. She is an active participant in the care of patients with soft tissue sarcoma, GIST and desmoid-type fibromatosis and coordinates a translational science research program that focuses on understanding the molecular drivers of sarcomas and how genomic aberrations in these tumors can inform patient care. Her work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Cancer Society among others. Dr. Crago is committed to educating others regarding sarcoma biology and patient care; as such, she trains clinical and research fellows at Memorial Sloan Kettering, is a Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School Special Contributing Faculty Member, and works as chair of the Society for Surgical Oncology Sarcoma Disease Site Working Group.
