Emerging Clinical Trials Signal Progress in GIST Treatment

Dr. Vinayak Venkataraman sat down for an interview with CURE to discuss the evolving treatment landscape for gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), with a particular focus on recent and ongoing clinical trials. During the conversation, he highlighted investigational approaches and emerging data, emphasizing how studies such as the PEAK trial may help address persistent unmet needs and further refine therapeutic strategies for patients with GIST across multiple lines of therapy.

Venkataraman is a medical oncologist as well as the director of Sarcoma Pathways at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where he is also an instructor in medicine and affiliated faculty at the McGraw/Patterson Center for Population Sciences at Harvard Medical School.

Notably, you can tune into the full interview with Venkataraman, in which he shares additional insight on advances in GIST treatment, here.

Transcript

Could you highlight any ongoing or recent clinical trials in GIST that you are particularly excited about?

There are two trials that I think are probably the most excited about. One of them is called the PEAK trial, and it was a phase 3 trial looking at the combination of Sutent (sunitinib) plus another KIT inhibitor called bezuclastinib (CGT9486), and comparing that to Sutent in predominantly the second line of treatment.

Most patients who are diagnosed with GIST will all be treated with Gleevec (imatinib) as the first-line treatment. But oftentimes, usually, on average, two years after starting treatment, their GIST develops resistance to the Gleevec, and Sutent is conventionally the second-line treatment in that population. This trial was looking at, “Can we do better than [Sutent] in the second line?”

We're hoping to get a readout of that trial very soon… I imagine it would be presented at the 2026 ASCO Annual Meeting this upcoming year. That is exciting because that could be a potential second-line treatment.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.