Fecal Testing Finds Colon Cancers At Same Rate As Colonoscopy

In a random, controlled study of two groups totaling over 53,000 asymptomatic individuals between 50-69 years old, the rate of finding colon cancer was the same for those that underwent a colonoscopy and those that had a blood stool test. Fecal testing had a much higher rate of participation than colonoscopy, 34.2 percent versus 24.6 percent, and therefore a greater number of individuals with colon cancer were found in the fecal testing group than in the colonoscopy group, 33 versus 30 individuals. The colonoscopy did find a higher rate of benign tumors in the colon than the fecal test.

From "Colonoscopy versus Fecal Immunochemical Testing in Colorectal-Cancer Screening" by Drs. Enrique Quintero and Antoni Castells:

Subjects in the FIT [Fecal Immunochemical Testing, or commonly known as stool testing] group were more likely to participate in screening than were those in the colonoscopy group. On the baseline screening examination, the numbers of subjects in whom colorectal cancer was detected were similar in the two study groups,

The study is a 10 year study and the current article is an interim report on participation and detection rates. The primary purpose of the study is to compare the rate of death from colorectal cancer of the two detection methods at the end of 10 years, which I presume will be forthcoming from the researchers at a later date.