# Funen faecal occult blood screening trial

Source: https://onco.cc/trials/funen-fob/  
OnCo record `funen-fob` (Trial). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Danish population trial that, with Nottingham, showed a stool test posted every two years cuts bowel cancer deaths by about a fifth.

## Summary

The Funen trial offered biennial Haemoccult testing to 30,967 people aged 45 to 75 and compared them with an unscreened control group. Of those invited, 20,672 (67 percent) completed the first round and more than 90 percent accepted repeat rounds. Over ten years 481 screened and 483 control participants were diagnosed with colorectal cancer, but there were 205 deaths from it in the screening group against 249 in controls, a mortality ratio of 0.82 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.99, p=0.03). Incidence was unchanged and mortality fell, which is the signature of earlier detection rather than prevention; the flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy trials that followed aimed at prevention by removing adenomas.

## Fields

- Kind: Trial
- Status: positive
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Also known as: Danish Funen trial
- Phase: 3
- Setting: People aged 45 to 75 in Funen, Denmark: biennial Haemoccult faecal occult blood testing against no screening
- Sponsor: Odense University Hospital, Funen
- Enrolled: 61933
- Result: Colorectal cancer mortality ratio 0.82 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.99) over ten years, with unchanged incidence.
- Outcomes: Colorectal cancer mortality: Biennial faecal occult blood screening 0.82 mortality ratio vs Control 1 mortality ratio
- Replication: Published in the same issue of the Lancet as the Nottingham trial, which found a 15 percent reduction.

## Sources

- Funen: randomised study of screening for colorectal cancer with faecal-occult-blood test (Lancet 1996): https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)03430-7

## Connected records

- cancers: [Colorectal cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/colorectal/)
- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/), [Prevention & Risk](https://onco.cc/fronts/prevention/)
- technologies: [Colorectal cancer screening (colonoscopy, FIT, stool DNA, blood)](https://onco.cc/technologies/colorectal-screening/)
- terms: [Faecal immunochemical test (FIT)](https://onco.cc/terms/fit-test/)
- trials: [Minnesota Colon Cancer Control Study](https://onco.cc/trials/minnesota-fob/), [Nottingham faecal occult blood screening trial](https://onco.cc/trials/nottingham-fob/)

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