Surgery for GIST

Surgery is the only potentially curative treatment for primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST cancer) and is often helpful for metastatic GIST.  Surgery is usually the first step in GIST treatment, though sometimes pre-operative drug therapy (called neoadjuvant therapy) with imatinib (Gleevec) is used to shrink a large tumor and make surgery easier.

This section has the following subpages (click to link):

• Surgical Procedures for Primary GIST describes types of operations to remove GIST.
• Effectiveness of Surgery for GIST explains prognosis after surgery for primary GIST.
• Surgery for Metastatic GIST explains when surgery is helpful for GIST cancer that has spread.