Fecal occult blood

So let's start with kind of our first two-stage screening cancer prevention test, which is stool testing.

I think this is the one that most of us have heard about, and the first up would be a FIT, which is a type of FOBT, a fecal called blood test.

So FIT is the classic stool card that we think of.

It detects a globin part of the hemoglobin, which makes it more specific than the older guaiac FOBT tests.

That being said, it still doesn't have great sensitivity because it relies on both the size of the adenoma and it needs for these early-stage cancers or advanced adenomas to bleed.

Adenomas that are less than six millimeters are essentially invisible to the FIT, and it really doesn't do much better up to nine millimeters.

Every woman is eligible from 50, but in reality, you can get it earlier than that.

And so mammograms, and if you have dense breast ultrasound as well, and then an FOBT.

I try to get, I mean, absolutely every woman over 50, but even if you're over 40, do the FOBT check.

That's checking for faecal occult blood in your stools, which can check for early cancer.

And there's so many new cases of young people being diagnosed with cancer.

So that is a very, very, very, very good one to do as well.

So blood, cervical screening, mammograms and FOBT, they're your absolute standard ones.

And the bone density as well.

A device can reduce bleeding while the patient remains symptomatic from iron deficiency that has not yet been corrected as it has another cause.

Do we need to perform an FOBT and MSU to exclude other areas of occult blood loss? For non-specific systemic symptoms, listen seriously while avoiding over-attribution.

Explore timing, alternative explanations, severity and the patient's values.

Evidence-based counselling does not require telling someone that her lived experience is impossible.