Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis AG’s cancer pill Gleevec has now extended the lives of patients with a type of gastrointestinal cancer over the long-term when they took to the drug for three years after the surgery as compared with the commonly used regimen of just a single year.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are a rare, life-threatening cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. The major cause of the GIST is said to be an abnormal form of the protein KIT, which causes cells to grow uncontrollably and become cancerous. But for now with the sudden announcement by the Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis AG who has reported the significant improvement in both recurrence-free survival and overall survival benefits of extended treatment with Glivec has made it possible to extend the life span of the patients with GIST

"Over the past nine years Glivec has provided KIT+ GIST patients with the first effective drug treatment option in the metastatic setting and later in the adjuvant setting", said Hervé Hoppenot, President, Novartis Oncology.

Glivec, a drug which is now seen to have been very useful for the patients with GIST, is finally approved in US, EU and other countries for the treatment of the patients with KIT (CD117)-GIST, which is impossible to be surgically removed and or may have already spread to the other parts of the body.