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Abstract Aim Audit to assess the final diagnosis in the cohort of patients referred by primary care via the two-week-wait pathway who were FIT positive Method Patients referred under the 2WW pathway over a two-month period were assessed for eligibility, the positive FIT threshold was 10 and above, patients above the age of 18 years old, primary care referrals and not known to have colorectal cancer were included. Diagnosis was confirmed based on imaging, endoscopy, or histological results. Results 437 two week wait patients, 205 patients met the eligibility criteria, 103 (50.2%) males, 102 (49.8%) females, age range 27 to 93 years (mean 69.71 +/- 13.41). 84 (41%) were diagnosed with diverticular disease, 62 (30.2%) had polyps, 46 (22.4%) had haemorrhoids, 14 (6.8%) were diagnosed with cancer while 20 patients were diagnosed with other conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, infective colitis, intra-abdominal extra colonic tumours, gynaecological pathologies, irritable bowel syndrome or other incidental findings Conclusions Majority of patients had no underlying cause of the symptom complex necessitating 2WW referrals, Diverticular disease is a common cause of patients meeting the community criteria for 2WW colorectal review and positive FIT, there was a relatively high rate of cancer diagnosis while a large proportion of patients had colonic polyps and subsequent polypectomy which is essential to reduce the risk of malignant transformation.
Oyewole et al. (Mon,) studied this question.