I. The so-called advanced gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor includes two categories: 1) patients who have been diagnosed for the first time and have been judged by the doctor to be inoperable for surgical resection or have metastasis, and 2) patients who have already had their tumor removed and have recurrence again. For a patient with advanced tumor, the outcome of treatment is usually disappointing. For example, in the case of patients with advanced gastric cancer, even with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, Chinese herbal medicine and biological treatment, the average (median) survival time is usually hardly more than 1 year, and in the case of individuals, it is hardly more than 3 years. However, according to a randomized, multicenter clinical study in the United States and Finland (B2 222), the mean (median) survival time for advanced gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors was 57 months, with a 9-year survival rate of 35%. Therefore, patients with gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor should have enough self-confidence and actively cooperate with treatment even in advanced stages, which is crucial to achieve good treatment results! Prognosis of resectable gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor If the doctor judges that the gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor is resectable when it is first diagnosed, then the prognosis is definitely better than the above-mentioned advanced gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor. Before imatinib, a targeted drug, was used to treat mesenchymal tumors, the average (median) survival time for all patients with resectable gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors was 66 months (note: just 9 months longer than the above results for patients with advanced stages on imatinib), with a 5-year survival rate of 54%, so doctors found that surgery alone could not cure all patients. Based on the good results obtained with imatinib for advanced gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors, this drug is again being used in a subset of patients with surgically resected gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors with the aim of reducing recurrence and prolonging the survival time of patients. According to a randomized multicenter clinical study (SSGVXIII/AIO) including nearly 400 patients with surgically resected gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors in 24 hospitals in four European countries, the overall 5-year survival rates were 92% (3 years on imatinib after surgery) and 81.7% (1 year on imatinib after surgery). And it should be noted that the above patients were patients with relatively large tumors, relatively high nuclear division and high risk of recurrence with intraoperative tumor rupture, whereas patients with resectable gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors who were judged to have a very low, low or intermediate risk of postoperative recurrence based on pathological findings had a better prognosis and could be considered to be cured (if their luck was not so bad).