# Randomised study of screening for colorectal cancer with faecal-occult-blood test (Funen)

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-kronborg-funen-faecal-occult-blood-lancet-1996/  
OnCo record `paper-kronborg-funen-faecal-occult-blood-lancet-1996` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Danish twin of the Nottingham trial: 61,933 people on the island of Funen, stool tests every two years for ten years, and an 18 percent fall in deaths from bowel cancer.

## Summary

Kronborg, Fenger, Olsen, Jørgensen and Søndergaard randomised 137,485 people aged 45 to 75 living in Funen, Denmark in blocks of 14, allocating three per 14 to screening (30,967), three per 14 to a control group (30,966) and eight per 14 to no enrolment. Controls were not told about the study. Hemoccult-II tests, with dietary restrictions and without rehydration, were sent to the screening group; only those who completed the first round were invited to the remaining four rounds over ten years.

The same number of cancers arose in each group (481 against 483), but fewer people died of them, which is what a screening test that finds cancers earlier is expected to do when it is not also removing the precursor lesions at scale.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Tags: colorectal-evidence
- Journal: The Lancet
- Year: 1996
- DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(96)03430-7
- Authors: Kronborg O, Fenger C, Olsen J, Jørgensen OD, Søndergaard O.
- Findings: 20,672 of 30,967 (67 percent) completed the first screening round; more than 90 percent of those accepted repeat screening.; 481 colorectal cancers in the screening group and 483 in controls over ten years.; 205 deaths attributable to colorectal cancer in the screening group against 249 in controls: mortality ratio 0.82 (95 percent CI 0.68 to 0.99, p=0.03).
- What it means: The second randomised trial to show the same effect in a different health system; together with Nottingham and Minnesota it made biennial stool testing an accepted public health intervention across Europe.
- Caveats: Guaiac testing without rehydration, which has low single-test sensitivity; the benefit comes from repeating it.; Identical cancer incidence in the two groups shows that guaiac screening shifts stage rather than preventing cancer, unlike endoscopic screening.

## Sources

- Lancet 1996: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)03430-7
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8942774/

## Connected records

- key papers: [Minnesota trial: a yearly stool blood test cuts bowel cancer deaths by a third](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-minnesota-fobt-nejm-1993/), [Randomised controlled trial of faecal-occult-blood screening for colorectal cancer (Nottingham)](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-hardcastle-nottingham-faecal-occult-blood-lancet-1996/)
- 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/)
- bottlenecks: [The hardest cancers are found late](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-early-detection/)
- journals: [The Lancet](https://onco.cc/journals/lancet/)
- roadmaps: [Colorectal cancer roadmap: from the adenoma-carcinoma sequence and the first screening trials to total mesorectal excision, oxaliplatin, RAS testing, immunotherapy for mismatch repair-deficient disease, ctDNA-guided treatment and organ preservation](https://onco.cc/roadmaps/colorectal-roadmap/)

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