[The usefulness of fecal tests in colorectal cancer screening]

Colorectal cancer is a paradigm of neoplasms that are amenable to preventative measures, especially screening. Currently, to carry this out, there are various strategies that have proven effective and efficient. In countries that have organized population-level screening programs, the most common strategy is fecal occult blood testing. In recent years, new methods have appeared that could constitute viable alternatives in the near future, among which the detection of changes in fecal DNA is emphasized. In this article, we review the most relevant papers on colorectal cancer screening presented at the annual meeting of the American Gastroenterological Association held in Chicago in May 2014, with special emphasis on the medium and long-term performance of strategies to detect occult blood in feces and the first results obtained with fecal DNA testing.