Effective salvage therapy of imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumor with combination of imatinib and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin.

Here we presented a 60-year-old Taiwanese man with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Disease progression was noted during imatinib treatment. Surgical resection was done and mutation analysis of KIT gene in all the resected tumors revealed deletion mutations of codons 558-565 in exon 11, whereas a missense mutation was also identified at codon 822 in exon 17 in one resected tumor. Patient's disease was refractory to escalating dose of imatinib and dasatinb. Surprisingly, combination of imatinib with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin produced a substantial response and resulted in a 5-month progression free period for this imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumor.