Treatment guidelines for GIST are established by experts to ensure that patients receive adequate care and appropriate therapies. Additional drug-related guidelines are developed by regulatory agencies such as the FDA in the United States and the EMA in Europe. Drug related guidelines typically cover all indications that a drug is approved for, for example, in addition to GIST, the prescribing information for Gleevec covers CML and several other leukemias/cancers. The prescribing information for Sutent covers GIST, kidney cancer and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNET).

Treatment Guidelines for GIST

United States

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is a non-profit alliance of 21 leading cancer centers. NCCN develops clinical practice guidelines and other resources for use by physicians, patients and other health-care decision-makers. The guidelines for GIST are included with the guidelines for soft tissue sarcomas in a document called NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN GuidelinesTM), Soft Tissue Sarcoma. A patient version of the guidelines (Soft Tissue Sarcoma) can be found at this link. You can also view the pdf. The section on GIST begins on page 58.

Europe

For patients in Europe, treatment guidelines are written by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). Guidelines for GIST can be found on this page:

http://www.esmo.org/education-research/esmo-clinical-practice-guidelines.html#c3340

A PDF of the 2010 ESMO guidelines can be downloaded via this link:
Gastrointestinal stromal tumours: ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up (PDF)– Annals of Oncology 21 (Supplement 5): v98-v102, 2010, doi:10.1093/annonc/mdq208 View Full Text

Other Guidelines by Country

This is a partial link of GIST guidelines by country. This list is not necessarily a list of all countries that have guidelines. In addition, newer guidelines may have been published after this list. Users should verify that they are referencing the latest guidelines for the country of interest.

Japan (English version abstract)

Korea 2010 (english PDF) (full text online version)

UK (full guidance) (patient version PDF) (quick reference guide PDF) (web format) (guidance on Sutent)