Might Patients with Metastatic Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors Benefit from Operative Management? A Population-Based Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: With respect to effect of surgery on the therapy of patients with metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (mGISTs), still no consensus has been reached. This research designed to investigate the effect of surgical treatment on prognosis in patients with mGISTs. METHODS: The population-based study consisted of 6282 GIST patients diagnosed between 2001 and 2016, from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database registry. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox model were employed for the exploration of the effect of surgery on overall survival (OS) and GIST-specific survival (GSS). RESULTS: In total, 6282 patients were diagnosed with GISTs, including 1238 (19.7%) mGIST patients and 5044 (80.3%) non-mGIST patients. Compared with the patients with non-mGISTs, metastatic patients assumed relatively lower proportion of surgical management (756 [61.1%] vs. 4666 [92.5%], P < 0.001). Based on unadjusted analysis, mGIST patients with operative management presented higher five years OS together with GSS in comparison with those without operative management (OS: 58.3% vs. 33.1%, P < 0.001; GSS: 61.6% vs. 36.7%, P < 0.001). Multivariable analysis found that no surgery was correlated to more than 2-fold increased death risk (OS, adjusted HR = 2.27, 95% CI: 1.90-2.71; GSS, adjusted HR = 2.42, 95% CI: 2.00-2.93). CONCLUSION: Metastatic GIST patients could potentially benefit from operative management with improved GSS and OS.