With Bowel Cancer Awareness month coming up in April, we wanted to highlight the importance of health screening – how it can help prevent cancer and other diseases, or catch it early enough to treat and cure it.
Bowel cancer, which includes colon and rectal cancer, is one of the most common cancers in the UK. It is mostly diagnosed in people over 60, but can be diagnosed in younger people.
Almost 43,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK. We are fortunate to have access to a bowel screening programme in the UK; the programme aims to find bowel cancer early. Since 2023, this lifesaving screening programme is available to individuals aged 54 and over. If you are registered at your GP surgery, you will automatically receive a home test kit every two years by post when you become eligible. The kit, known as the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), checks for blood in a small stool sample, which can be a sign of bowel cancer.
Through regular screening, the programme aims to diagnose bowel cancers at an earlier stage, increasing the chances of successful treatment and survival. I turned 64 in February so my third FIT testing kit will be on its way to me. I do look forward to the results with some trepidation, I wouldn’t be human otherwise, but I’d never not do the test as bowel cancer, when picked up early, is highly treatable. Results from my husband’s FIT a few years ago picked up blood in his stool and he was scheduled very quickly for a colonoscopy, where they found several polyps, including a large one that was bleeding. The gastroenterologist said that if it had been left for another few years, it would have turned cancerous.
Lives are saved when cancers are caught early and the bowel cancer screening programme can help to spot signs of bowel cancer sooner, and potentially save thousands of lives.
Bowel cancer is treatable and curable if diagnosed early.
I would encourage anyone who is sent a kit to return their tests as quickly as you can – most people won’t have signs of cancer, but if the test does detect anything, you can get referred for further tests and treatment. Please look out for your kit in the post and don’t ignore it. It may just save your life.
Screening is a privilege we should all take up. For most people it is simply taking a small sample of your poo and then receiving the green light when the test result comes back, but for a smaller number of people it can help detect cancer early and treat it with a positive outcome.
Early detection of bowel cancer, the third most common type of cancer in England, can significantly improve treatment outcomes.
Risk factors
Doctors do not know the exact causes of bowel cancer, but there are risk factors that can increase your chance of developing it. You are more at risk of getting bowel cancer if you have one or more of the following risk factors. This doesn’t mean that you will definitely get bowel cancer. Equally, if you don’t have any risk factors, it doesn’t mean you can’t get bowel cancer.
- Aged over 50
- A strong family history of bowel cancer
- A history of non-cancerous growths (polyps) in your bowel
- Long-standing inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis
- Type 2 diabetes
- Eating a lot of red and processed meat. Red meat includes beef, lamb, pork, veal, venison. Processed meat includes smoked meat, ham, bacon, sausages, pate, tinned meat. Eating fried or grilled meat may also increase the risk.
- Being physically inactive and/or overweight
- Smoking
Do I need a FIT?
Traces of blood in your poo can be caused by other medical conditions and doesn’t mean you have cancer. But if it is cancer, finding it at an early stage means treatment is likely to be more successful.
Your doctor might give you this test as part of the investigation for your symptoms. The FIT results help your doctor decide whether to refer you for more tests.
If you notice any symptoms of bowel cancer, contact your GP and don’t wait for your screening test. The type of changes to look out for are changes in your usual bowel habits for 3 weeks or more:
- tummy discomfort
- red blood in poo
- black, tarry poo – this may indicate bleeding further up
- diarrhoea or constipation for three weeks or more for no obvious reason
- a feeling of not having emptied your bowels after going to the toilet
- pain in your stomach or bottom
- your poo is loose, pale or looks greasy
- a palpable lump in your tummy
- rapid, unexplained weight loss
How do I do a FIT?
You do this test yourself at home.
Your GP will give you a pack containing all the information and equipment you need to collect your sample and send it directly to the laboratory. This will include:
- Collection tube
- Request form (generated by the GP practice)
- Instruction sheet
- Return envelope
For more information on bowel cancer and screening, please visit: https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk.
If you have a FIT kit lying unopened at home, I hope this information will motivate you to do the test and send it off. Screening tests can help find cancer at an early stage, before symptoms appear, so please don’t fall behind with your health screening. Lives can be saved and the personal, societal and economic costs of cancer care are reduced.
Your body is your most precious possession. Take care of it!
