Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 May 7;25(1):337.
doi: 10.1186/s12876-025-03945-5.

Unraveling the site-specific features in small intestinal stromal tumors: a retrospective study

Qipu Wang #  1 , Muhan Li #  1 , Xiaoyin Bai  1 , Ruishi Zhang  2 , Suaizhi Ruan  1 , Chengzhu Ou  1 , Ji Li  3 , Jingnan Li  4
Affiliations

Unraveling the site-specific features in small intestinal stromal tumors: a retrospective study

Qipu Wang et al. BMC Gastroenterol. .

Abstract

Background: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are a rare and less well-characterized disease. There is limited information on the clinical features of small intestinal GISTs at different sites.

Aims: To enhance the understanding of the clinical characteristics and disease behavior of small intestinal GISTs based on their sites.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of medical records for 317 patients diagnosed with primary small intestinal GISTs confirmed by surgical pathology, comparing their clinical features and tumor characteristics.

Results: According to this cohort's data, duodenal GISTs presented with longer disease durations and higher prevalence of melena (44.6%), while jejunal GISTs manifested as abdominal masses (11.5%) and acute gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) (13.3%), with the highest rate of emergency surgeries (16.8%). Ileal GISTs were associated with an older age of onset and a higher prevalence of hematochezia (19.6%), with one-third of cases discovered incidentally during gynecological procedures. Notably, the biological behavior of small intestinal GISTs varied significantly by sites. Tumors demonstrated different immunochemical markers and a progressive increase in diameter, mitotic activity, T and M stages, and risk classification from the duodenum to the jejunum and ileum. These findings warrant further validation in prospective multicenter studies.

Conclusions: Small intestinal GISTs might exhibit distinct clinical presentations and oncological features depending on their sites.

Keywords: Biological behavior; Clinical features; Gastrointestinal bleeding; Risk category; Small intestinal stromal tumors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This manuscript’s analyses are strictly derived from de-identified clinical data systematically extracted from the Hospital Information System (HIS). The retrospective study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) (No. I-22PJ407), including a waiver of written informed consent. The study protocol also incorporated telephone follow-ups, which needs verbal consent acquisition according to IRB. But this manuscript does not involve any results from telephone follow-ups. This study was in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Clinical features of patients with small intestinal stromal tumors at different sites. A violin plot showed the distribution of age of onset and age at surgery; B the distribution of duration of disease and duration of gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB); C the percent of abdominal mass in different groups; D the percent of abdominal pain; E the percent of melena; F the percent of hematochezia; G the percent of gastrointestinal bleeding; H the percent of acute gastrointestinal bleeding; I the percent of gynecological surgery; J the percent of emergency surgery
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Biological behaviors of small intestinal stromal tumors at different sites. A the median, interquartile range and range of diameter of tumors in different groups; B the median, interquartile range and range of the mitotic count in 50 high power fields (HPF); C the percent of distant metastasis (M) category; D the percent of primary tumor (T) category; E the percent of modified NIH risk stratification
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Khan J, Ullah A, Waheed A, Karki NR, Adhikari N, Vemavarapu L et al. Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST): A Population-Based study using the SEER database, including management and recent advances in targeted therapy. Cancers (Basel). 2022;14(15). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Blay JY, Kang YK, Nishida T, von Mehren M. Gastrointestinal stromal tumours. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2021;7(1):22. - PubMed
    1. Søreide K, Sandvik OM, Søreide JA, Giljaca V, Jureckova A, Bulusu VR. Global epidemiology of Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST): A systematic review of population-based cohort studies. Cancer Epidemiol. 2016;40:39–46. - PubMed
    1. Ma GL, Murphy JD, Martinez ME, Sicklick JK. Epidemiology of Gastrointestinal stromal tumors in the era of histology codes: results of a population-based study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2015;24(1):298–302. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang ZH, Liang XB, Wang Y, Ma GL, Qu YQ, Tian XW. [Epidemiology survey of Gastrointestinal stromal tumor in Shanxi Province in 2011]. Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2013;93(32):2541–4. - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources