A colorectal surgeon on why over-60s need to screen for bowel cancer
Dr Andrew Luck is the colorectal surgeon at the Lyell McEwin Hospital in Adelaide. He is a member of the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand, and is a Board Member of bowel cancer prevention charity, The Jodi Lee Foundation.
Bowel cancer awareness is definitely on the rise and groups like The Jodi Lee Foundation are making an impact. They spread the word about bowel cancer, and more importantly that it can be prevented or cured if found early enough. It’s becoming a less taboo subject, meaning that people are more comfortable talking about it.
People who are over 60 years of age are at a higher risk of bowel cancer than younger people. In fact, risk increases sharply and progressively from age 50. Early detection is vital to the outcome. Despite all of our modern treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, about 30 percent of people who get bowel cancer die from it, and it’s usually an awful demise, involving considerable pain and suffering.
Bowel cancer often has no symptoms until the cancer had advanced or spread, which is why screening with the home test is essential to detecting it early. The test identifies small amounts of blood in the faeces. If a person returns a positive test, a colonoscopy is then needed to find out the cause of the bleeding. If it was due to a polyp (40 per cent of the time) and the polyp can be removed, then a bowel cancer may have been prevented. If it is due to a cancer that is already present (two per cent of the time) then the likelihood is that there will be a better outcome than if the cancer was found later, when symptoms showed.
A patient with Stage I bowel cancer will need an operation, but has a 95 per cent chance of being alive and well in five years’ time. A Stage III diagnosis, where lymph nodes are affected, means that six months of chemotherapy is required, and the five year survival rate is around 50 – 60 per cent. A Stage IV diagnosis, which means the cancer has spread to other major organs such as the liver or lungs, is rarely curable, and has a five year survival rate of less than 10 per cent.
It’s frustrating that people are choosing not to screen, despite the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) providing free kits to a number of age groups from age 50. The simple test has the potential to save a many lives.
The NBCSP is still several years away from being fully implemented to provide free kits every two years. All of the statistics show a benefit for these tests if they’re taken at least every two years, so it is vital that people do a test from the doctor or the chemist in the in between years.
I urge everyone to take the home screening test regularly. You don’t want to experience what many of my patients and their families have endured.
For more information about preventing bowel cancer, please visit The Jodie Lee Foundation.
Related links:
The bowel cancer screening kit saved my life
What I did after my wife passed away from bowel cancer
Majority of bowel cancer screening kits thrown away