Simple, Life-Saving Bowel Cancer Screening Test

Bowel Cancer when diagnosed among people that are completely fit and healthy and no family history of the disease can be quite a bolt from the blue.

Often a dot size of a red ink spot is the sole early sign of bowel cancer. Frequently, general practitioners tend to dismiss this symptom for piles telling their patients to not be worried about it.

Bowel Cancer Screening can help spot the disease early on. However, regrettably in countries like England, bowel cancer screening is offered only when one turns sixty years old and above. But, Scotland and other countries in the European Union this screening is obtainable from fifty years of age.

More than a hundred individuals are identified with bowel cancer on a daily basis in Britain. The death rates are soaring with sixteen thousand fatalities annually.

Bowel cancer when diagnosed in its early staging raises survival chances by ninety percent. The disease can be cured when spotted in its preliminary staging, however if not then there is solely 1-in-10 odds of the person being able be survive past 5 years.

With greater number of bowel cancer cases being diagnosed in the over-sixty age bracket of people, hence the last 2years has seen prompt roll out of screening programmes for those in the ages of sixty to sixty-nine years by the NHS in England. Eligible candidates are forwarded testing kits for use in their homes. The test checks for blood traces in stool sample and then sent back for evaluation purposes. In case there is an irregular test outcome then referral of that individual is done for examination.

Another issue is that solely fifty-two percent of those people entitled to get screened are actually taking it up. Often lesser knowledge and greater embarrassment about their bodies are the common reasons. When such people do visit their General Practitioner, mostly they get wrongly diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or piles. In case there is no improvement in a month’s time, especially with the blood loss and weight reduction, such people must ideally undergo endoscopy procedure – a pliable tubular device introduced for examining colon anomalies.

The most prevalent signs of bowel cancer are bleeding from the rear passage, blackish-appearing faeces and a variation in bowel motions.  Other symptoms comprise of weight loss, pain in abdomen and exhaustion.

A representative from the NHS Cancer Screening Programme states that the 60-69 year age bracket has been decided upon as it is a high-risk group having nearly eighty percent of bowel cancer cases being detected among sixty years and above individuals. A verdict on extension of age bracket for including fifty to fifty-nine year old people would be taken by concluding part of 2010.

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