Faces of GIST – Bella Rocco
What is your name? Bella Rocco How long have you been living with GIST? Since I was seven years old. I am twelve now.
What is your name? Bella Rocco How long have you been living with GIST? Since I was seven years old. I am twelve now.
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York have found a rare mutation in some GIST tumors. In a series of 61 patients with wild-type GIST, they found that three of them (5%) had mutations in a gene called BRAF. This same mutation, a “V600E” mutation in exon 15 of the BRAF gene, occurs frequently in melanoma. They also found the same mutation in one of 28 GIST patients that were resistant to Gleevec.