Cancer Research UK : Bowel cancer screening

Bowel cancer screening

Bowel cancer screening can prevent bowel cancer and detect it early.

The bowel cancer screening programme uses a test called the faecal occult blood test (FOBT) to check for early signs of bowel cancer.

The FOBT looks for hidden (or ‘occult’) traces of blood in your stools that may have come from bowel tumours. The test can be done by the person being screened in the privacy of their home and results are sent to a lab for testing.

The FOBT does not diagnose bowel cancer. People who have a positive test result are invited for further checks. Usually, this involves colonoscopy, where doctors look directly at the lining of the bowel using a miniature camera at the end of a thin tube that is inserted into your bowel.

Why early detection is important

Four in five people with bowel cancer detected at an early stage successfully recover from their disease. But if the tumour is very advanced when it’s diagnosed, fewer than one in twenty people recover from it.

Screening can also prevent bowel cancer

Most bowel cancers start off as harmless growths called adenomas. Doctors can find these adenomas through bowel screening, and remove them before they become full-blown cancers.

Adenomas don’t usually cause any symptoms so screening is an important way of spotting them. Once spotted, they can be removed without the need for surgery.

History of the screening programme

Following a small delay, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme began rolling out in England in 2006, with four local centres and six programme hubs.

In 2007, ten more centres will open, and by 2009, the plan is to cover the whole of England with more than 90 centres.

The screening programme will also start to roll out in Scotland from 2007 and in Wales from 2008. The plans for Northern Ireland are still to be confirmed.

Who can be screened?

The bowel screening programme will be offered to both men and women in specific age ranges.

In England, people aged 60–69 will be screened every 2 years. From 2010, the programme will be extended to cover men aged 70-75 although this will take several years to roll out fully.
In Scotland, people aged 50–74 will be screened every 2 years and the programme will be phased in between 2007 and 2009.
In Wales, people aged 60-69 will be screened as of 2008, and people aged 70-74 will be screened from 2010 onwards.
In Northern Ireland , the age range for screening is still to be confirmed

Does it work?

It is too early to say just how successful the bowel screening programme will be – we need to see it in practice across the UK first. But smaller-scale pilot studies have found that FOBT can reduce deaths from bowel cancer by about 15–20%.

An early estimate suggested that this programme could prevent about 1200 deaths every year in the UK from bowel cancer.

Our current research

Cancer Research UK scientists are testing an alternative screening technique called flexible sigmoidoscopy to see if it could be a better way to detect and prevent bowel cancer.

Professor Wendy Atkin in London has been co-ordinating a large trial of flexible sigmoidoscopy throughout the UK. Early results from this trial suggest that just one examination of the bowel at age 50 could prevent about 4,500 cases of bowel cancer every year.

Find out more

Our CancerStats section has some detailed information on bowel cancer screening and our patient information website, CancerHelp UK, has more information about the screening process.

You can also find out about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer by ordering our bowel cancer leaflet.

Your lifestyle affects your risk of bowel cancer too, and you can reduce your risk by:

eating a healthy, balanced diet
keeping a healthy bodyweight
being active
limiting how much alcohol you drink