Do You Bleed? A 1-Year FOBT Case-Series Study.

Goals: The goal of this study is to investigate fecal occult blood test's (FOBT) usage in cases of suspected gastrointestinal bleeding and how it may affect hospitalization length and inpatient endoscopy procedures.

Background: FOBT is an approved modality used in colorectal cancer screening but is often used inappropriately for the investigation of suspected gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) in the hospital setting. The efficiency of FOBT when used for this purpose is questionable.

Study: This study was performed at a 766-bed tertiary academic medical center. All FOBT performed during a 12-month period were identified and 678 cases were analyzed. The results of FOBT were collected along with information regarding patients' hemoglobin levels, rectal examination frequency, performance of endoscopy, length of hospital stay, and presence/absence of gastrointestinal lesions.

Results: There were no findings on endoscopy in 13.5% of cases with positive FOBT, demonstrating weak test sensitivity. Low percentage (14.6%) of patients having negative FOBT results underwent endoscopy, even with negative FOBT results, whereas less than 50% of positive FOBT patients were offered procedural evaluation, demonstrating the inefficiency of FOBT in guiding management. Patients with positive FOBT had longer hospitalization periods. Even in the absence of GIB symptoms, critically anemic patients would still undergo endoscopy for GIB investigation even without FOBT being performed.

Conclusions: FOBT is inappropriately used in the hospital setting for GIB investigation. This study shows the inefficiency of FOBT to guide management and the high frequency of positive inpatient FOBT tests leading to unnecessary endoscopic investigation, longer hospitalizations, and delays in care. FOBT should be limited to the outpatient setting and be avoided while investigating GIB, anemia, etc. in the hospital.