Though gastrointestinal stomal tumors (GIST) may be recognized and identified throughout an endoscopy, in accordance with Dr. Rosario Ligresti, these are nonetheless uncommon tumors that warrant additional characterization.
“It is not a typical tumor, nevertheless it’s frequent sufficient that [we can find them, and] sufferers will discover it in the event that they get an endoscopy,” Ligresti, the chief of Gastroenterology and Interventional Endoscopy at Hackensack Meridian Well being, stated in an interview with CURE.
Within the interview, he defined how GIST differs from different forms of cancers sufferers could have heard of and highlights what sufferers ought to know.
Transcript
What precisely is GIST? How does it differ from different forms of cancers sufferers may need heard of?
It is not a typical tumor, nevertheless it’s frequent sufficient that [we can find them, and] sufferers will discover it in the event that they get an endoscopy. Oftentimes, the primary query sufferers ask is whether or not the tumor that the physician discovered, which was thought-about a GIST, is malignant. That is actually the place issues get [tricky] as a result of GISTs fall right into a type of a bizarre place on the neoplastic or most cancers spectrum.
They don’t seem to be frequent tumors; they’re tumors of the supporting construction of the gastrointestinal tract, type of just like the scaffolding. And once more, they’re, by and enormous, benign entities, however they actually have vital malignant potential. So after we see them, and we see them typically sufficient in sufferers as a result of they’re typically discovered as lumps and bumps throughout an endoscopy, additional characterization is unquestionably warranted.
As an entire, GISTs are a small proportion of all gastrointestinal neoplasms, in all probability just one% to 2% % of all GI tumors, and there are seemingly solely about 6,000 circumstances reported in the USA yearly. So, it is an unusual tumor, nevertheless it’s frequent sufficient, as I stated, within the inhabitants that will get endoscopies.
Transcript has been edited for readability and conciseness.
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