The Importance of Fecal Occult Blood in Preventive Health Services and the Concept of Chromatography


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ÖZTÜRK O., GÖKTEPE M. E., FİDANCI İ., OKUYUCU M.

Turkish Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, vol.15, no.1, pp.8-11, 2021 (Peer-Reviewed Journal) identifier

Abstract

Fecal occult blood (FOB) is an inexpensive, easily applicable, reliable and efficient test that is used to detect colonpathologies. FOB is applied as a screening program in family medicine practice that is a part of preventive health services inmany countries. The main objective of the scanning program is to perform a FOB test at every two years for everyonebetween the ages 50-70 in the standards set in Turkey. The patients that are tested positive as a result of this screening whichis also actively applied in Turkey are directed to secondary care for further examination by the primary care physicians.Scanning is performed by using the test kits that are based on chromatography and developed by means of immunochemicalmethod. In this article, the importance of FOB in preventive health services and the concept of chromatography will bediscussed.