Simple test shown to slash bowel cancer death rate

Photo / Paul Estcourt

Scientists have announced results from the first trial in the world to show that bowel cancer can be prevented with a simple, once-in-a-lifetime, five- to 10-minute screening test.

Among 40,000 people screened, the test cut the incidence of the cancer by a third and the death rate by 43 per cent over a decade.

Harpal Kumar, the chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: "We don't often use the word breakthrough but this is an occasion when I will."

From 1994 the test was offered to men and women aged 55 to 64. It involves examining the lower bowel with a flexible telescope inserted through the anus for the presence of polyps - small growths which are burned or snipped off.

Polyps occur in about one in five people over 55 and in one in 20 they develop into cancer.

Professor Wendy Atkin at Imperial College, London, who led the trial, published in the Lancet, said: "Our study shows for the first time that we could dramatically reduce the incidence of bowel cancer ... by using this one-off test."

- INDEPENDENT