NICE provides draft guidance on Faecal Immunochemical Test in primary care
Wednesday 5 July 2023
New draft guidance on the use of a home test called Faecal Immunochemical Test, known as FIT, in people with symptoms of bowel cancer has been published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) today.
Doctors have been advised by NICE to offer people with signs or symptoms of suspected bowel cancer a home test kit to help reduce waiting times for diagnostic tests, like a colonoscopy or flexi-sigmoidoscopy.
Under existing NICE guidance for cancer, FIT was already offered to some people presenting to their GP with symptoms of bowel cancer, while others were immediately referred for diagnostic tests. The new draft guidance will now see everyone with suspected bowel cancer or those with symptoms receive a FIT kit.
Those with a positive result will be referred for a colonoscopy for further investigation. However, GPs can refer people for a colonoscopy without a positive FIT result if they think it is necessary and where symptoms persist.
Colonoscopy capacity is limited, and there are sometimes long wait times for these life-saving tests. Using FIT could reduce the number of people referred for diagnostic tests, ensuring people who could have bowel cancer are urgently referred for life-saving tests and reduce the waiting times to allow people on non-urgent referral pathways to be seen more quickly.
This should lead to 50% fewer referrals for urgent colonoscopies being made by GPs each year.
Dr Lisa Wilde, Director of Research and External Affairs at Bowel Cancer UK, says: “Those with low risk symptoms, especially younger people, often face a delayed diagnosis or have to see their GP a number of times before being referred for further tests. This guidance will help GPs to better identify and refer the right patients for further testing quickly and could help detect bowel cancer at an earlier stage when it is more treatable and curable.”
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