The data from the study, led by Professor David Humes in the School of Medicine and supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), will now be used to look at whether this test could be used to test for other types of diseases, as well as bowel cancer.
Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer and the second highest cause of cancer death in the UK.
This new study, published in Lancet Primary Care, looked at FITs (faecal immunochemical tests).
FITs are used by GPs to detect microscopic traces of blood in people’s poo who have symptoms of bowel cancer (colorectal cancer).
If the test is negative, then the risk of bowel cancer is very low and no further tests are needed.
“There has been a huge increase in the number of FITs being done each year, but there are many other reasons why someone might have a positive result,” says Dr Francesca Malcolm, a Clinical Research Fellow in Colorectal Surgery and NIHR Doctoral Fellow in the School of Medicine at the University and lead author of the study.
Research from bowel cancer screening has linked a positive FIT with an increased risk of dying from diseases other than bowel cancer.
No studies have looked at whether this is the case in patients having FIT for symptoms of bowel cancer.
“We have done the first study looking into the risk of death in patients who have had a positive FIT with symptoms of bowel cancer,” adds Dr Malcolm.
The team used anonymous data, which was collected from nearly 50,000 patients living in Nottingham between 2017 and 2022 who had an FIT because of symptoms of bowel cancer.
In the year following a FIT because of bowel cancer symptoms, 1971 (4%) patients died.
“In our study, after one year, patients with a positive FIT had double the risk of death compared to patients with a negative test. Although this is a test for bowel cancer, most of the deaths were because of other causes.
“We hope to use these results to improve how FIT is used in future. The next step is to look at causes of death after a positive FIT; this will help to decide whether other diseases should be tested for after a positive result.”