Pediatric gastrointestinal stromal tumor: Report of two novel patients harboring germline variants in SDHB and SDHC genes

Abstract

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are the most common mesenchymal tumors of the gastrointestinal tract and rarely occur in pediatric patients. 85% of pediatric GISTs and 15% of adult GISTs lack of KIT or PDGFRA mutations. 40% of these “wild-type” GISTs present loss of function mutations in genes encoding for the subunits of the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) complex. Germline mutations in SDH complex genes have been described in patients with the Carney–Stratakis syndrome (CSS), a rare inherited condition that predisposes to GIST and paraganglioma. We report two pediatric patients with multifocal GIST, harboring respectively a novel and a previously reported loss-of-function germline variant, in SDHC and SDHB genes.