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Screening for cancer

What is cancer screening?

Screening involves testing large groups of healthy people for early signs of certain types of cancer.

This can help doctors find any abnormal changes before you develop symptoms.

There are three screening programmes in the UK, for breast, cervical and bowel cancer (which is still rolling out).

Why screen for cancer?

• Screening can detect cancer at an early stage. For most cancers, early detection means that treatments are easier and have a higher chance of success.
• Some, but not all, screening programmes can also prevent cancer. The cervical and bowel cancer screening programmes can detect abnormal changes before they progress to full-blown cancer. Treating these changes can prevent cancer from developing at all.

Screening tests can help to detect cancer early by picking up warning signs, but they aren't enough to diagnose the disease by themselves.

If someone gets a positive result in a screening test, they are usually invited for further diagnostic tests to confirm if they have cancer.

Why don’t we screen for every cancer?

Screening programmes can only be set up for a particular cancer if we have a good enough test for it. A good test must:

• reliably detect any cancers or abnormal changes that could lead to cancer
• not cause too many false alarms, by saying that someone has cancer when they haven’t
• be acceptable, so that the people who would benefit will actually come and take the test
• not be dangerous to health
• be cost-effective.

If a cancer is rare, it wouldn’t be an effective use of time and money to screen the entire population, and could cause unnecessary worry for those being screened. If good tests are available for rarer cancers, doctors will often offer them to particular groups of people who have the highest risks of the disease.

Being body aware is still important

Screening programmes are a vital part of the fight against cancer. But not all cancers can be screened for, and screening tests are not perfect.

Being aware of your own body is important too. Know what’s normal for you and pay attention to any changes. You can find out more about which symptoms you should look out for in our leaflets for men and women (coming soon).

Even if you are attending screening for breast, cervical or bowel cancer, make sure you go to see your doctor if you have any symptoms that worry you.