A study of laboratory based faecal occult blood testing in Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

Faecal occult blood tests (FOBT) are widely used in clinical practice and are under increasing scrutiny as a tool for colorectal cancer screening. However, there is little information regarding the quality of testing performed in pathology laboratories. Therefore, we asked 13 pathology laboratories in Melbourne, Australia, to test coded contrived faecal samples prepared from a composite stool specimen which had been spiked to various concentrations of haemoglobin. The samples were provided to the laboratories in two forms: (i) on/in the sample collection device appropriate for the faecal occult blood test they normally used; and (ii) as a moist faecal sample. Some variation in threshold anal..