Purpose or Case Report: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) in children are not well characterized, different adult rare entity. It corresponds to a heterogeneous group of lesions for correct classification requires histological, immunohistochemical evaluation and in some cases also adds to the cytogenetic diagnosis. We describe the findings of pediatric GIST.
Methods & Materials: Descriptive, retrospective and observational study. Review of medical records of five patients of both sexes diagnosed with GIST between January 2007 to July 2015 in our hospital.
With an age range from 12 to17 years of age (mean 13 years). They were evaluated clinical findings ultrasound, tomographic, surgical and pathological.
Results: The predominant symptoms were abdominal pain (n = 4) 3 of them, and one recurrent acute enterorrhagia (n = 1), hematemesis (n = 1) and incidental (n = 1). The 80% (n = 4) patients had stomach commitment, 40% (n = 2) of the small intestine and 20% (n = 1), colon. At diagnosis 60 % had intraabdominal dissemination (peritoneum, liver and pancreas). No significant differences between genders (1.5/1) were demonstrated.
Sonographic evaluation showed solid lesions, and poor vascularization hypoechoic ( n = 4 ), MSCT of abdomen with oral contrast and solid images showed EV, lobulated contours, hypodense, with heterogeneous enhancement without nodal involvement in 100% cases ( n = 5).
GISTs are KIT(CD117)-positive. One of them also showed deletion of exon 11 of the KIT gene linked to familial predisposition to the disease.
Only in one case tumor recurrence was observed, with positive findings on PET -scan and poor response to treatment with monoclonal antibodies (imatinib)
Conclusions: These tumors are, in most cases, slow growth and intraabdominal dissemination at diagnosis. The most frequently affected organ was the stomach. The ultrasound was a sensitive method, both at diagnosis, and monitoring of these patients given the good correlation obtained with CT findings