Men and women encouraged to have home cancer test

Public Health England is urging all men and women, aged over 60, to get screened for bowel cancer after a new report highlighted a decline in men and women having the home cancer test.

Bowel cancer screening is offered to all men and women aged 60 to 74, who are sent a home test kit to provide stool samples. Latest figures show that 40 per cent are not getting tested, with men in particular admitting that the embarrassment of providing a stool sample is unnecessarily putting them at risk. The risk of bowel cancer increases with age, with over 80 per cent of bowel cancers arising in people who are 60 or over.

Screening Programmes in England 2016 to 2017, which shows a three per cent rise from the previous year, finds that the take-up for bowel cancer screening, currently 59 per cent, is still significantly lower compared to other cancer screening programmes - breast screening (76 per cent) and cervical screening (72 per cent).

As a result of screening last year, over 3,000 bowel cancers were diagnosed, with 90 per cent of those cases finding the cancer at an early stage, increasing the likelihood of successful treatment. Next year there will be a new home test, the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), which requires just one sample rather than the current three, and will detect bowel cancer more accurately.

Professor Anne Mackie, PHE’s director of screening, said: “It’s of great concern that four out of every 10 over 60 year olds are not taking up the offer of getting tested for bowel cancer. Men in particular are less likely to send in a sample, so we’re asking their partners, children and grandchildren to encourage them to do so.

“Bowel cancer causes 13,000 deaths every year, which is why screening is so important. Embarrassment over giving a stool sample may be causing thousands of preventable deaths. But with a new home test kit next year making it much easier to get screened, we are hoping to see numbers increase.”