New Horizons – Long-term GIST Survivor Story
Chuck Korte presented his story as Long-term GIST Survivor at New Horizons 2021.
Chuck Korte presented his story as Long-term GIST Survivor at New Horizons 2021.
On May 4th the LRG held a lively discussion with three long-term survivors, Erin McBean, John Abrams, and Dr. mOe Anderson. Diagnosed at different stages of life, with different mutations, these GISTers shared how they have thrived with GIST over ten years and counting.
The average GIST patient is in their 50s or older when diagnosed with GIST. The rare exception is usually a pediatric SDH- deficient GIST, but April’s case is a case of ‘the rarest of the rare’ in that she was only 20 years old when she first encountered GIST and was not SDH-deficient.
For GIST patients, long term survival is the ultimate goal. A number of factors may influence long term survival – some of these are demographic and clinical, like mutational subtype and genetic factors. However, there are a number of others that are perhaps more subtle, such as lifestyle, attitude, and access to treatment, experts, and advice.
It has been a long journey since that day Melinda and I walked out of my Dallas oncologist’s office in May, 2000 knowing that I had a rare, then untreatable cancer. Now, it has [...]
The side effects of traditional chemotherapy treatments are often apparent, with images of bald patients with pain-etched faces captured in photographs. For targeted therapies such as those for GIST patients and other cancers that [...]