occult blood tests (FOBTs) have already been commercially available since the late 1950s. test’s characteristics the sampling method the number of samples and whether there were any concomitant factors affecting test performance. Most importantly blood loss can be intermittent or variable such that FOBTs do not demonstrate regularly excellent results in individuals with root GI malignancies. However FOBTs be capable of identify a satisfactory proportion of the populace who’ve early-stage colorectal tumor or adenoma and who are able to in turn become amenable to effective treatment yielding a reduction in colorectal tumor mortality by 15% to 33% in randomized managed trials (2). The goal of a testing check is to recognize in asymptomatic people in danger for a given condition those who have an increased likelihood of that condition; in screening the pretest probability depends solely on those individuals’ risk factors. The purpose of a diagnostic test is different. The decision to use a test to derive from a constellation of symptoms signs and laboratory abnormalities a most likely diagnosis should be based on the likelihood that the results of such a test would impact the overall likelihood of a given diagnosis or impact future therapeutic or investigative decisions. Under which circumstances then would the use of an FOBT have an impact on a diagnostic or therapeutic decision? Are there any clinical circumstances in which the result of an FOBT would or should impact our decisions to treat or further investigate patients? The answer is no. Patients who present with symptoms and/or laboratory abnormalities that raise the suspicion of an overt or obscure GI blood loss have by definition and solely because of that clinical presentation a pretest probability of GI bleeding that is beyond the use of an FOBT. The approach to patients with symptoms suggestive of GI blood loss cannot and should not be influenced by the result of an FOBT; the use of an FOBT under such circumstances is therefore inappropriate. To further demonstrate the ineffectiveness of FOBT as a diagnostic test Van Rijn et al (3) investigated the reasons for ordering an FOBT and the impact of the FOBT result on the subsequent diagnostic workup in 2993 FOBTs ordered in 14 hospitals in the Netherlands more than a one-year period. The writers discovered that FOBTs had been ordered due to anemia (41%) suspicion of anal bleeding (17%) abdominal discomfort (14%) altered colon behaviors (10%) or others (18%). Thirty-eight % of the sufferers using a positive and 41% from the sufferers with a poor FOBT result respectively BMS-650032 ultimately underwent a GI follow-up analysis (P=0.86). From the 25 people in whom a feasible reason behind occult loss of blood was discovered 13 got a positive and 12 a poor FOBT result. The writers figured this common however inappropriate usage of FOBT being a diagnostic device causes inefficiency and needless delays in the diagnostic workup. Such conclusions had been also attracted by others (4 5 It has additionally been recommended that in older sufferers who will probably have an increased occurrence of comorbidity FOBT being a diagnostic check may be recognized by doctors to become more appropriate weighed against endoscopy. However people in this BMS-650032 generation have the best pretest odds of GI pathology (eg tumor) and symptoms are normal; it is therefore important to rather refer these sufferers for even more evaluation (3). In today’s BMS-650032 problem of the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology Ip et al (6) (pages 711-716) have exhibited by way of surveying members of various specialties within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and members of the Canadian KLHL22 antibody Association of Gastroenterology that this tendency to inappropriately use FOBT for diagnostic purposes in hospitalized patients is usually most common in primary care and emergency medicine. In contrast BMS-650032 gastroenterologists and surgeons who typically will be consulted on the basis of symptoms in the presence of a positive FOBT tend not to use the test. The study by Ip et al is usually timely because as provincial screening programs are adopting the more sensitive and more costly fecal immunochemical test (FIT) it is important in provinces where opportunistic screening is prevalent that this inappropriate use of the FOBT does not carry over to FIT with a consequential increase in costs. It is now more important than ever to start educating primary care and emergency room physicians about the uselessness of FOBT for diagnostic purposes. It is also important to consider whether the use of FOBT in.