Gastrointestinal stromal tumour and second tumours: A literature review

There are several tumours associated with gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST), most of them without an apparent family relationship; only 5% of them occur within the context of a family syndrome. In this article the corresponding literature about the former has been reviewed. A search in Pubmed was carried out, the methodology of which is described in detail in the body of the article. A total of 88 articles have been chosen for the review, next to the application of limits as well as a manual review. GIST patients have a twofold risk of developing a second tumour than the general population (4-33% of them develop a second neoplasm, either synchronic or metachronic). Most incident tumours associated with GIST are gastrointestinal and genitourinary tumours. In addition, patients with second tumours have a worse survival rate than those without second tumours.