Imatinib as Pre-operative Anti-Colon Cancer Targeted Therapy

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Male or female aged ≥18 years
2. Histologically proven adenocarcinoma of the colon;
3. Completed cancer staging with CT-abdomen and CT-thorax/X-thorax according to hospital's standard of care;
4. Confirmed eligibility for surgery with curative intent as deemed by the hospital's multidisciplinary board (MDB) review;
5. An intratumoural gene expression profile of PDGFR-α, PDGFR-β, PDGF-C and KIT, indicative of the mesenchymal phenotype, according to our diagnostic RT-qPCR test (i.e. more than 50% chance of having the mesenchymal phenotype);
6. Minimum of four properly stored pre-treatment biopsies for gene expression analysis/ELISA;
7. WHO performance status 0 or 1;
8. Adequate haematology status and organ function, defined as:

   * Normal creatinine clearance (≥60 ml/min (MRDR))
   * ALAT within 2.5x upper limit of normal (ULN)
   * PT-INR \< 1.5
   * Leukocytes \> 1,5\*10\^9/L; Hb \> 6.0 mmol/L; platelets \> 100\*10\^9/L
9. Willingness and ability to comply with scheduled visits, treatment plans and laboratory tests;
10. Written informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. The presence of synchronous distant metastases;
2. Current hospital standard of care dictates that subject should undergo any neoadjuvant therapy;
3. Concurrent participation in another clinical trial using any medicinal product, or participation in such a trial in the period of three months prior to the current trial;
4. Women who are pregnant, plan to become pregnant or are lactating during the study or for up to 30 days after the last dose of imatinib;
5. Known HIV or Hepatitis B/C infection;
6. Known symptomatic congestive heart failure;
7. Co-morbidity requiring concomitant treatment with drugs that act as strong inducers of CYP3A4 or with drugs with a narrow therapeutic range influenced by imatinib