Yep, There's an At-Home Test for That

Which ones should you trust to diagnose your health?

- Andrea Atkins

The 95-year-old patient was sure she had colon cancer. After noticing some rectal bleeding, she used an at-home colon cancer screening test. The results were positive. She feared her life was ending.

Her physician, Mark B. Pochapin, MD, the director of the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at NYU Langone Medical Center, examined her.

“She did not have cancer,” he says. “She had hemorrhoids.”

At-home medical tests too often can produce false positives. Still, these tests are appealing for their ease and convenience—from the comfort of your home, you can swab and stick your way to important health information. But you might not be able to interpret the results or get reliable readings, physicians say.

Still, lots of people are using them. The National Poll on Healthy Aging at the University of Michigan recently found that 3 in 4 adults ages 50 to 80 believe that at-home tests are more convenient than going to a physician or health-care provider.

Many people became comfortable with at-home testing during the pandemic as they tested for the coronavirus, says Matthew Weissman, MD, professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. But screening for other conditions is often more complicated.

“It’s great in the sense that it saves in office visits,” Dr. Weissman says. “Mostly, though, it still requires doctor intervention,” whether that’s to prescribe medication or to help you interpret data.

Dr. Pochapin says, “You should tell your doctor, ‘I’m thinking of doing this test. Is it appropriate?’”

But that might not be happening. According to Jeffrey T. Kullgren, MD, physician and director of the National Poll on Healthy Aging at the University of Michigan, just 55% of those who bought and used an at-home test for infection shared the results with their primary care provider.