Metastatic pattern and prognosis of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST): a SEER-based analysis

Purpose This SEER-based study aimed to explore and analyze the relationship of metastasis of liver, lung and bone of GIST patients and their prognosis. Methods The data of GIST patients were from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 2010 to 2015 and all the statistical analyses were conducted by statistical software package SPSS (Version 22.0). Results A total of 4224 GIST patients were identified, of which 388 (9.19%) patients with liver metastasis, 20 (0.47%) patients with bone metastasis and 32 (0.76%) patients with lung metastasis. There was no significant difference of risk of bone or lung metastasis between patients with and without liver metastasis (P = 0.935). The median overall survival of patients with liver, bone, or lung metastasis was, respectively, 49 months, 18 months, and 20 months, which were all shorter than that of patients without metastasis. The overall survival of patients with both liver and bone metastasis and those with metastasis of all three sites was not significantly different from that of patients with only liver metastasis. The multivariate analysis showed age of less than 65 years, female patients, married status and receiving surgery were all the beneficial factors for prognosis of GIST patients with liver metastasis. Conclusions Patients with metastasis had a poorer prognosis than those without. Liver metastasis might have no relationship with bone or lung metastasis and liver might play a more dominant role than the other two sites in the prognosis of GIST patients with metastasis. So, more attention should be paid to liver status in diagnosis and treatment of GIST patients.