Hi, I have received my yearly FOB check test. I am now post RT for prostate cancer (6 months) but I still get a little bit of bleeding from haemorrhoids (present pre diagnosis) and sometimes have very mucous stools.
Slightly concerned if FOB shows any blood from treatment (i.e. a false positive) it will send me on a new spiral of investigations and invalidate my holiday insurance. I have no symptoms or red flags.
Any thoughts?
Hi Indykid,
Thanks for getting in touch. My name is Sarah and I’m one of the cancer information nurse specialists.
That’s a really good question.
The bowel cancer screening programme can pick up signs of early bowel cancer if even the smallest amount of blood is found in the stool.
As you have haemorrhoids that might be bleeding when you take the test it’s highly likely that this will be flagged on your Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT). The difficulty is knowing if this is definitely due to the haemorrhoids so further testing may be recommended such as a colonoscopy to determine the root cause of the bleeding.
Going forward it would be a good idea to discuss this with your GP if the result comes back as positive. If you are recommended to have a colonoscopy it would ultimately be your decision if you wanted to have one carried out.
There are frequently asked questions that might be helpful to look at. This information includes the contact number for the bowel screening helpline, it may help to give them a call if this is something you wanted to look into further.
I really hope this information was helpful. Please know, you can always give us a call to talk things through further.
Take care and best wishes,
Sarah (Cancer Information Nurse Specialist)
You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email or use webchat.
Ref: SMc/FP
