Bowel cancer screening is a powerful tool to spot bowel cancer early, making it easier to cure. With bowel cancer being one of the most common cancers worldwide and numbers on the rise, screening for bowel cancer is more important than ever to help reach a day where no life is cut short by this devastating disease.
What is bowel cancer screening?
Bowel cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide. Screening is a vital way that this deadly disease can be stopped - it involves a test you can do at home to look for early signs of the disease, or non-cancerous polyps which can develop into bowel cancer.
By checking for these early signs, bowel cancer can be detected as early as possible, or even prevented from ever developing.
If you live in England, Scotland or Wales and you are aged between 50 and 74 you’ll be invited to take part in bowel cancer screening every two years. You’ll be sent the simple test in the post along with instructions about how to use it.
If the screening shows possible signs of bowel cancer, further tests are done. These extra checks mean that doctors can make a more accurate diagnosis and recommend the best treatment plan.
What test is used in bowel cancer screening?
If you take part in a bowel cancer screening programme the test you will do is called the faecal immunochemical test (FIT). This involves sending a stool sample to a lab where they will look for blood in the sample.
Having blood in your stool sample does not always mean bowel cancer, but it can be a sign of the disease. If blood is found in your stool sample you might then need a colonoscopy to further investigate. This test involves using a camera to see better what is going on inside your bowel.
Why is early detection through screening vital?
Having regular stool tests lowers your risk of dying from bowel cancer, so screening saves lives. Research shows that after the programme was rolled out in England, the incidence of bowel cancer fell among adults in the screening age by 7%. And, like other types of cancer, the sooner bowel cancer is detected the easier it is to cure.
Data from England shows that at stage 1, when bowel cancer is detected early, around 9 in 10 people will survive five years or more after a diagnosis. When it is not diagnosed until stage 4 and has spread to other parts of the body, only 1 in 10 people will survive bowel cancer for five years or more.
This is a dramatic difference which is why it is crucial to catch this deadly disease early. Screening is an easy way to do just that.
What are the limitations of current screening methods?
Limitations of the test:
The bowel cancer screening test is helping to save lives around the world, but no test is 100% accurate. Here are a few things to be aware of if you are taking part in the screening programme:
- The test can sometimes suggest there is a polyp or early cancer there when there isn’t. This is called a false positive.
- The test might not detect a polyp or early cancer even if it is there. This is called a false negative.
- Some bowel cancers wouldn’t necessarily impact your quality of life, but a diagnosis might result in invasive treatments and cause you and your family to worry. This can be called overdiagnosis.
These risks are small though, and screening programmes are only recommended if they will do more good than harm.
Access limitations:
In the most deprived areas of England, uptake of screening is lower than in the least deprived areas and equitable access is also a challenge globally.
Different countries have their own rules around who is included in their programme. If you are unsure whether you qualify for a screening programme or you have other concerns please check with your doctor.
For screening programmes to be successful, people need to be able to access them easily, there needs to be good public awareness and healthcare systems need to have sufficient resources and infrastructure.
Age limitations:
Currently the bowel cancer screening programme in England, Scotland and Wales is only offered to people ages 50-74. Although bowel cancer mostly affects older people, rates are worryingly on the rise in young people.
Curestarter Nick was only in his thirties when he received his devastating bowel cancer diagnosis. We urgently need more cures so that nobody at any age has to go through what Nick did.
Research is revolutionising bowel cancer screening
No cancer screening programme would exist without research. The UK bowel cancer screening programme began in the 2000s after scientific evidence showed that testing for blood in stool samples would prevent bowel cancer deaths. Since then research has helped to improve the test - when the programme began it used a test called gFOBt but in 2016 it was recommended that the current test called FIT should replace it to be more accurate and easier for people to use.
Researchers around the world are looking at how bowel screening programmes could save even more lives. In Wales a study is exploring whether an additional blood test could help identify bowel cancer for people who have a positive FIT test result. This could potentially save people from needing invasive colonoscopies and help bowel cancer patients receive treatment more quickly.
By better understanding how cancer grows, we can find new ways to detect it. As a cancer research charity, we are proud to be starting new cures for bowel cancer.
Curestarters like you are helping find new cures for bowel cancer:
Dr Phillip Karpowicz
Thanks to you, Dr Karpowicz and his team are currently exploring whether the time that we eat affects the development of bowel cancer.
Dr Maite Huarte
Your support is allowing Dr Huarte and her team to try to find a way to switch off the machinery that drives bowel cancer growth.
Dr Jurian Schuijers
The generosity of our supporters is funding Dr Schuijers and his team's work to investigate a potential new way to block bowel cancer growth.
Unfortunately, we all have family and friends who have been affected by cancer. We want to channel our strong passion for science into helping people.
Your bowel cancer screening FAQs:
What is bowel cancer screening and how does it work globally?
Bowel cancer screening is a programme to detect bowel cancer at an early stage, to stop it in its tracks. Bowel cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide. There are different screening programmes in place in different countries around the world to help tackle this global challenge.
Why is early detection so important in bowel cancer?
The sooner bowel cancer is detected, the easier it is to treat. Screening helps to identify bowel cancer before symptoms might appear, meaning that bowel cancer patients can be given the treatment they need sooner.
What are the limitations of current screening methods?
No test is 100% accurate, but we know that bowel cancer screening saves lives. The test used in the screening programme checks for blood in the stool sample which is an indicator of bowel cancer. Further tests are needed to confirm a diagnosis.
Is research making bowel cancer screening more accurate?
Bowel cancer screening programmes would not exist without cancer research and the curiosity and determination of scientists. Researchers are continuing to look for ways to make the tests more accurate and to help more people access vital screening programmes.
Researchers are also working to explore new cures for bowel cancer, so that if it is found by a screening programme it can be treated and eliminated.
How can early detection improve survival rates?
If bowel cancer grows and spreads to other organs, it becomes much harder to treat. The sooner it is detected the easier it is to cure. At stage 1, when bowel cancer is detected early, around 9 in 10 people will survive five years or more after a diagnosis. By stage 4, only 1 in 10 people will survive bowel cancer for five years or more.
How does screening help us move closer to curing bowel cancer?
Screening is a vital tool to help cure bowel cancer. Sometimes it can detect polyps that would develop into bowel cancer, and removing these prevents the disease from ever starting. Other times it can detect bowel cancer before other symptoms appear, meaning patients receive lifesaving treatment sooner.
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