Successful Perioperative and Surgical Treatment of a Rare Case of Extra-Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Arising in the Prostate Gland

Abstract

We report a very uncommon case of a primary, non-metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) arising in the prostate gland in a 60-year-old patient. The morphology and immunohistochemical profile of the disease resembled GIST of gastrointestinal origin, and the molecular driver of this malignancy was a double mutation in exons 11 and 13 of the KIT gene. The tumor was proliferating slowly, did respond to neoadjuvant therapy with the KIT-inhibiting agent imatinib and was cured by radical, retro-pubic prostatectomy followed by adjuvant imatinib treatment. We postulate that primary GIST tumors of the prostate can arise from prostatic interstitial cells, which are the pacemakers of smooth muscle contractility in the gland, and possibly share a common precursor with typical GIST and the interstitial cells of Cajal in the gastrointestinal tract.