Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) medication, such as lansoprazole or omeprazole can make the H. pylori stool test less accurate. If you take PPIs you should stop this at least 2 weeks before testing. It is usually safe to stop this medication for a short period of time, but if you're not sure, speak to your prescriber.

The test for coeliac disease will not be accurate if you do not have gluten in your diet. Make sure your diet contains wheat, barley or rye in the 6 weeks before testing for accurate results.

Gut symptoms can have a wide variety of causes but not every cause is relevant for every person. That's why we like to give you flexibility to choose the IBS test panel that's right for you.

If you're over the age of 40 and have gut symptoms that aren't settling down then guidelines recommend that you check for bowel cancer with a qFIT test.

If you've been travelling abroad or otherwise exposed to potentially contaminated food or water, then you may want to check for common bacterial and parasitic infections. We have two options you can add on. You can add on stool microscopy for ova, cysts and parasites to your IBS panel if you're worried about more exotic parasitic infections such as roundworm and flatworm. These are very unusual in the UK and nearly all cases come from exposure abroad.

Alternativly, you can also add on a combination PCR test for two common parasites - Giardia and Cryptosporidum - and 4 common bacterial infections - Shigella, Campylobacter, Salmonella and toxic E. coli. The bacteria tend to cause acute gastroenteritis where as infection with either of the two parasites can cause chronic symptoms which can easily be mistaken for IBS.

A number of common conditions like gut inflammation, coeliac disease and H. pylori infection can cause very similar symptoms to irritable bowel syndrome. This test panel checks for all these common conditions. If you get negative results, it's very unlikely that you have one of them. If we do pick one them up with a positive test, then you'll have a target to treat. Either way, you'll be in a better position to get your symptoms under control.

All the tests in the IBS panel are analysed by The Doctors Laboratory (TDL). TDL are one of the largest laboratories in the UK and test for the NHS (e.g. University College Hospital London) and private providers such as ourselves. Whether the test is for the NHS or a private healthcare provider, the exact same testing platforms and procedures are used.

But no test is perfect - there can always be "false positive" and "false negative" results. Each test in the IBS test panel has a different accuracy:

• Calprotectin test for inflammation: this is a quantitative test meaning that the result is a number. The number itself is accurate but a high calprotectin doesn't always mean there will be inflammation in the bowel. The value needs to be considered alongside other factors such as your medical history and any symptoms. Using a calprotectin cut-off value of 50µg/g, can exclude significant bowel inflammation with 99% certainty^ref.
• H. pylori stool antigen test: 95.5% sensitivity and 98.6% specificity^ref. This means that about 4% of people with H. pylori can have a false negative result and about 1.4% of people without H. pylori can have a false postive result.
• qFIT test: using a limit of detection (4µg/g), the sensitivity of qFIT to pick up bowel cancer is 93.4% and the specificity is 77%. The "negative predictive value" (the liklihood that you don't have bowel cancer if you get a negative qFIT result) is approximately 99.9%^ref.
• Coeliac disease test (tissue transglutaminase antibody test): 91% sensitivity and 91% specificity. The liklihood that you don't have coeliac disease if you get a negative test result is approximately 99.7%^ref.

We do not recommend using the IBS test panel if you:

• are a child (17 years or under) - children can have different causes of bowel symptoms to adults and it's sensible to discuss these with your family doctor.
• are feeling acutely unwell - e.g. with a cold or flu - or if you have new-onset (i.e. within the last few days) gut symptoms such as stomach abdominal pain or diarrhoea.

If you're unsure if you should use this test panel, please contact us for advice.