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Understanding why patients with symptoms of possible bowel cancer do not complete faecal immunochemical testing

Lead researcher: Dr Christina Dobson

Location: Newcastle University

Grant award: £25,000

Dr Christina Dobson and her team are looking at which people who visit their GP with symptoms of possible bowel cancer are less likely to return a faecal immunochemical test, and why.

The challenge

Over half of all bowel cancer cases in the UK are diagnosed after talking to a GP about symptoms. People who visit their GP with symptoms of possible bowel cancer are asked to complete a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) looking for blood in their poo, and the results of this help their GP decide which further investigations they should be referred to, and how urgently.

Some people asked by their GP to complete FIT don’t return the test. This slows their onward referrals, and if they do have cancer, it can delay their diagnosis. The earlier bowel cancer is diagnosed, the better the chance of it being cured, but there could be a sizable number of people each year potentially being diagnosed later because of uncompleted FITs.

The science behind the project

The researchers at Newcastle University, led by Dr Christina Dobson, will be working with Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, which sends out around 10,000 FITs each month to patients with possible bowel cancer. They will be analysing a year’s worth of data about FIT requests and returns. They will be looking to see whether certain groups of patients are less likely to complete FITs, for instance whether age, sex, urban/rural areas and deprivation may be associate with FIT returns.

Following this, the team will talk to people with symptoms of possible bowel cancer who did not return their FITs to understand their experiences and feelings around the test. They will explore any practical barriers to FIT completion that patients experience, as well as discussing how the information they received from their GP about the process and importance of FIT may have influenced their decision about completing the test.

What difference will this project make?

The results from this project will identify patient groups that are less likely to complete FIT, guiding GPs on which patients may need extra help and encouragement. The findings from the interviews will help inform future plans to reduce the number of uncompleted tests, by identifying the key barriers to completion and considering ways to help people overcome these. This will help people with bowel cancer to be diagnosed more quickly and reducing the number of referrals which are delayed due to unreturned tests.

 

An image of Dr Christina Dobson smiling into camera against a plain light green background

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