Current
studies
Overview
This research project is a scoping review on the use of FIT in current international screening programs.
Most countries with an organised population-based bowel cancer screening program use a quantitative faecal immunochemical test (FIT).
A positive faecal immunochemical test (FIT) indicates blood in the stool to be followed up by a diagnostic colonoscopy to investigate the cause of the bleeding including pre-cancerous polyps and bowel cancer.
There’s important heterogeneity between the different programs in terms of how the FIT is used and its results interpreted.
In this scoping review we will document the test parameters applied by the current screening programs (e.g. using one or two sample tests, FIT positivity threshold) along with the test performance and impacts that result from those parameters (e.g. sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, diagnostic yield, interval cancer etc).
Investigators
Dr Driss Ait Ouakrim, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
Mr Terence Lu, Master of Public Health student, The University of Melbourne