Stool For Occult Blood
Understanding Stool For Occult Blood
What is Stool For Occult Blood?
The stool test for occult blood, also called a fecal occult blood test (FOBT) checks the presence of blood in stool that is not visible to the naked eye. Blood in the stool is indicative of some kind of bleeding in the digestive tract which could be indicative of conditions like polyps, ulcers and colorectal cancer.
The fecal occult blood test can only detect the presence or absence of blood, it can't determine what's causing bleeding. This is a simple, inexpensive, and most frequently performed stool test. An FOBT is a screening test that may help find colorectal cancer early when treatment is most effective.
If your test results are positive, additional tests such as a colonoscopy are recommended to figure out the exact location of bleeding.
What is Stool For Occult Blood used for?
- To screen for digestive tract bleeding, which may be an indicator of colon cancer, asymptomatic ulcerated lesions of the GI tract, polyps, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, and Colitis (a type of inflammatory bowel disease).
- To evaluate unexpected anemia
Interpreting Stool For Occult Blood results
Interpretations
Normal result: negative means occult blood is not present in the stool.
Positive stool occult blood test means that there is bleeding somewhere in your digestive tract asymptomatic ulcerated lesions of the GI tract, polyps, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, Colitis, and colorectal cancer. If stool for occult blood is positive, then additional tests may be required such as colonoscopy in order to detect the exact location and cause of your bleeding.