NICE FIT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
NICE Guidelines + the place of the Faecal Immunochemical Test as a triage tool for predicting Bowel Cancer
IRAS ID
218404
Contact name
Muti Abulafi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Croydon University Hospital
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
At present, there are no means of predicting if patients' symptoms are due to bowel cancer. When patients present to their GP with bowel symptoms that need investigating, they will be referred for a colonoscopy. We are conducting a study that aims to determine whether the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) can be used in the future as an effective tool to identify patients at risk of bowel cancer.
In 2005, NICE introduced guidelines where patients with certain symptoms that are associated with a high probability of bowel cancer are referred under the two week rule to secondary care for investigations. These patients must be seen within two weeks of referral and if a cancer is diagnosed, patients must be treated within 62 days of referral. The vast majority of patients referred undergo an endoscopic examination either a colonoscopy (to view the whole colon) or a flexible sigmoidoscopy (to view the left side of the colon) to confirm whether a patient has an underlying cancer or not. However, only 10-15% of these referrals have underlying bowel cancer or significant pathology such as precancerous polyps. The remaining patients do not have significant pathology. In 2015, NICE expanded the criteria significantly in order to increase the pick up rates of bowel cancer from these two week referrals. This means that a large number of patients unnecessarily undergo endoscopic examination with the associated risk of bowel perforation, sedation and the procedure itself. This also strains the cash-strapped resources of the NHS. The FIT test is a simple one-off stool test that patients can do at home and has shown promise in predicting bowel cancer in both the screening (Moss et al 2016) and symptomatic (MacDonald et al 2015, Auge et al 2015, Mowat et al 2015, Cubiella et al 2015) patient settings.REC name
London - South East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/2174
Date of REC Opinion
3 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion