Twenty-year survival outcomes with imatinib for advanced GIST: exploratory long-term follow-up of the multicenter BFR14 trial

Imatinib has shown efficacy in advanced GIST, but long-term survival impact remains less understood. The multicenter phase 3 BFR14 trial in France included 434 patients receiving imatinib for advanced GIST, with a median follow-up of 219 months. The median overall survival was 75.3 months, with survival rates at 10 and 20 years 33.9% and 13.1%, respectively. Factors significantly associated with better survival were female gender, gastric tumor location, smaller primary tumor size, and KIT exon 11 mutations.