Novel Agents Under Investigation for the Treatment of GIST

Vicki Keedy, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Clinical Director, Sarcoma Program, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discusses novel agents that are currently under investigation for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).

Clinical Pearls

• Masitinib, a TKI, is currently in two ongoing phase III studies: one comparing it to imatinib in first-line treatment, and one comparing it to sunitinib in second-line treatment
• Mastinib targets the specific mutations in exon 11 at codon 557/558 that are relatively imatinib resistance as well as some of the wild type, non-KIT mutated, non-PDGFR mutated GIST
• Other drugs are looking at bypassing the KIT pathway completely, testing to see if other tyrosine-kinase pathways can be inhibited to get around the resistance