Definition:
These are rare tumor of the gastrointestinal tract also known ‘GIST'. GIST is a form of joint tissue cancer or sarcoma. GISTs are therefore non-epithelial tumors, separate from common forms of bowel cancer.
Diagnosis:
Smaller tumors can found to the muscularis propria layer of the intestinal wall. Large ones grow, mostly outward, from the bowel wall until the point where they outstrip their blood supply and necrose (die) on the inside, forming a cavity that may eventually come to communicate with the bowel lumen.
As part of the analysis, blood tests and CT scanning are usually undertaken.
Treatment:
GIST were notorious for being resistant to chemotherapy, with a success rate of less than 5% but recently the c-kit tyrosine kinase inhibitor, a drug initially marketed for chronic myelogenous leukemia, was found to be useful in trewating GIST.
Therapy for GIST best consulted to the physicians who are knowledgeable with the disease. Such as doctors specifically surgeons and medical oncologists are found at major cancer centers.
Symptoms and Signs:
Patients having trouble swallowing, gastrointestinal hemorrhage or metastases (usually in liver). Intestinal obstruction is rare, due to the tumor's outward pattern of growth. Usually there is a history of vague abdominal pain or discomfort and the tumor has become rather large by time the diagnosis is made.
Causes:
Small tumors are generally benign, especially when cell division rate is slow, but large tumor disseminate to the liver, omentum and peritoneal cavity. They unusually occur in other abdominal organs.
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