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The fecal occult blood test (FOBT) — including the guaiac-based (gFOBT) and fecal immunochemical test (FIT) — is recommended only for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. However, FOBT is commonly used for diagnostic evaluation of patients with gastrointestinal symptoms or iron-deficiency anemia (IDA). In the current systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 studies, researchers assessed the utility of this practice.
Results were as follows:
In the 12 studies including nearly 2500 patients with IDA, lesions that were considered diagnostic included erosive esophagitis, gastric ulceration, vascular ectasia, gastric polyp >1 cm, gastric cancer, colonic ulceration >1 cm, colonic polyp >1–1.5 cm, multiple colonic vascular ectasias, active colitis, a…