Prof Wendy Atkin

Detecting and preventing bowel cancer

Professor Wendy Atkin, based at St Mark's Hospital in London, is a prominent bowel cancer researcher. Her research focuses on preventing the disease and detecting it early.

Detecting bowel cancer early

With joint funding from the MRC, Professor Atkin is principal investigator for a large trial to test a bowel screening technique called flexible sigmoidoscopy, which involves searching for bowel problems with a camera on a flexible plastic tube. Evidence suggests that the test may only need to be done once at around age 60.

The test currently used in the national bowel screening programme detects blood in the stool, which can be caused by bowel cancer. But flexible sigmoidoscopy can detect pre-cancerous polyps, as well as bowel cancers, and so may be able to save more lives.

In the meantime, Professor Atkin is exploring how best to develop an effective workforce of nurses with the specialist skills needed to perform flexible sigmoidoscopy as part of the screening programme. She has developed information materials and training methods for these nurses.

And she is working out how often people with higher-risk polyps should have check-ups with colonoscopies, to make sure that their polyps haven’t become full-blown cancers.

Professor Atkin is also running the SIGGAR1 trial, of a technique called 'virtual colonoscopy', which could be used instead of colonoscopies to diagnose bowel cancers. This new method takes several x-rays of the bowel to look for tumours, and is less invasive than the traditional method.

Preventing bowel cancer

Professor Atkin is also interested in preventing bowel cancer using food supplements, including vitamins and minerals.

She is preparing to run a trial to see if curcumin – a chemical found in turmeric, the spice that makes curries yellow – and the mineral selenium could help prevent polyps from coming back.