Study of Dose Escalation Versus no Dose Escalation of Imatinib in Metastatic Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST) Patients

Exclusion Criteria

• •Disease progression during adjuvant therapy with imatinib (adjuvant treatment is treatment that is given after surgery for GIST)
• •Known intolerance of imatinib at a dose of 400 mg/day or higher
• •Prior systemic therapy for advanced GIST with imatinib or those who have been on imatinib for longer than 6 months for unresectable and/or metastatic disease
• •Major surgery within 2 weeks prior to Day 1 of study or who have not yet recovered from prior surgery
• •Use of coumadin derivatives (i.e. warfarin, acenocoumarol, phenprocoumon)
• •Patients who have received wide field radiotherapy ≤ 4 weeks or limited field radiation for palliation \< 2 weeks or who have not recovered from side effects of this therapy