Clinical Trial Confirms Gleevec Reduces Recurrence
On April 12, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American College of Surgeons (ACOSOG) and Novartis pharmaceuticals announced that a phase III trial studying Gleevec use to prevent recurrence in patients whose primary Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) had been removed by surgery would be ended early because it had met its primary endpoint of increasing recurrence free survival with a statistically significant hazard ratio of 3.1.