• CLINICAL RESEARCH •

AIM: Malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are rare. Tumors larger than 10 cm tend to recur earlier: the larger the volume of the tumor, the worse the prognosis. We hypothesized that treatment with imatinib mesylate (Gleevec; STI-571), a c-kit tyrosine kinase inhibitor, as palliative therapy would prolong the survival of patients with recurrent giant malignant GISTs after resection. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of the effects of resection on patients with giant GISTs (>10 cm in diameter) to determine the overall survival and recurrence rates. Twenty-three patients diagnosed with giant GISTs were included from June 1996 to December 2003. STI-571 was not available until January 2000. After that time, 9 patients received this drug. The factors of age, sex, tumo