Treatment of advanced gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma complicated with high-risk gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) in an elderly male patient: a case report and literature review

Currently, coexistence of gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) is still infrequent. What’s more, there are few guidelines for the drug therapy of both types of synchronous tumors. Here, we report such a dangerous case and review the related literature for a better treatment. A 79-year-old male patient was admitted to our hospital for abdominal pain and diarrhea more than a month and stopped relieve nature nine days. He was preliminarily diagnosed as sigmoid colon adenocarcinoma and GISTs after having a Computed Tomography scan at another hospital. After gastroscopy, colonoscopy and pathological examination, we further diagnosed synchronous advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) and high-risk GISTs. Through literature review and medical records, we carefully developed the treatment protocol for this case, which is the chemotherapy plan for gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma plus imatinib. There is still insufficient evidence on the safety and efficacy of the regimen and more research and trials are needed to evaluate it.