Immunochemical FOBT colorectal cancer screening

A study led by Dr David Hughes (Centre for Systems Medicine, RCSI) examined the relevance of using a two sample quantitative immunochemical faecal occult blood test (FIT) at a high cut off stringency by the first population–based colorectal cancer (CRC) pilot screening programme in Ireland. The manuscript is online from June 10th 2013 in the journal Colorectal Disease*. The CRC miss rate estimated for a single test (23.5%) was unacceptably high when the goal was to maximize the discovery of advanced lesions in the initial screening round. The authors concluded that the two test protocol at a high cut off threshold is suitable to optimize FIT screening in Ireland.

  • *Kelley L, Swan N, Hughes DJ. An analysis of the duplicate testing strategy of an Irish immunochemical FOBT colorectal cancer screening programme. Colorectal Dis. 2013 Jun 10. doi: 10.1111/codi.12310. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 23746062