ArticleBMC medicine2023
Faecal haemoglobin concentrations are associated with all-cause mortality and cause of death in colorectal cancer screening.
Article in BMC medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Variation in fecal hemoglobin concentrations: Cross-sectional analysis of a screening trial and a screening program in Sweden.Journal of medical screening · 2026Trial
- Colon Capsule Endoscopy in the Routine Diagnostic Pathway for Colorectal Diseases (DanCap): Protocol for a Cluster-Allocated Crossover Trial.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Re-investigation rate following colon capsule endoscopy stratified by faecal haemoglobin concentration in a screening population.Therapeutic advances in gastroenterology · 2026Article
- Engineering coupled consortia-based biosensors for diagnostic.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundColorectal cancer (CRC) screening reduces all-cause and CRC-related mortality. New research demonstrates that the faecal haemoglobin concentration (f-Hb) may indicate the presence of other serious diseases not related to CRC. We investigated the association between f-Hb, measured by a faecal immunochemical test (FIT), and both all-cause mortality and cause of death in a population-wide cohort of screening participants.
methodsBetween 2014 and 2018, 1,262,165 participants submitted a FIT for the Danish CRC screening programme. We followed these participants, using the Danish CRC Screening Database and several other national registers on health and population, until December 31, 2018. We stratified participants by f-Hb and compared them using a Cox proportional hazards regression on all-cause mortality and cause of death reported as adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs). We adjusted for several covariates, including comorbidity, socioeconomic factors, demography and prescription medication.
resultsWe observed 21,847 deaths in the study period. Our multivariate analyses indicated an association relationship between increasing f-Hb and the risk of dying in the study period. This risk increased steadily from aHR 1.38 (95% CI: 1.32, 1.44) in those with a f-Hb of 7.1-11.9 μg Hb/g faeces to 2.20 (95% CI: 2.10, 2.30) in those with a f-Hb ≥60.0 μg Hb/g faeces, when compared to those with a f-Hb ≤7.0 μg Hb/g faeces. The pattern remained when excluding CRC from the analysis. Similar patterns were observed between incrementally increasing f-Hb and the risk of dying from respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and cancers other than CRC. Furthermore, we observed an increased risk of dying from CRC with increasing f-Hb.
conclusionsOur findings support the hypothesis that f-Hb may indicate an elevated risk of having chronic conditions if causes for the bleeding have not been identified. The mechanisms still need to be established, but f-Hb may be a potential biomarker for several non-CRC diseases.
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