Call for over 50s bowel screening

Screening should start in middle age, says research

A study suggests that 50 may be the right age to start screening men and women for bowel cancer.

People with a family history of bowel cancer should be screened for the disease in their lower 40s.

Researchers used a French national cancer registry to look at the lifetime risk of colorectal cancer.

They found that one in 23 men and one in 40 women will develop a colorectal cancer at some point in their lifetime.

Men with two or more family members affected by the disease had a 26% risk themselves of developing bowel cancer.

These results, published in the Journal of Medical Screening, agrees with other study findings suggesting that late middle age is the best time to start offering screening to both men and women.

Dr Sue Moss, from the Institute of Cancer Research's Cancer Screening Evaluation Unit in Sutton, Surrey, said: "Other studies do suggest that 50 is about the right age.

Most acceptable

"What we are trying to find out now is which method of screening is most acceptable."

There are three current method of screening for cancerous lesions in the bowel.

Flexisigmoidoscopy involves a probe with a camera attached which is inserted into the lower bowel to check for problems.

A different probe, called a colonoscope, can probe more of the bowel, but the procedure is more likely to cause tears in the bowel wall.

Finally, a faecal occult blood test uses a stool sample which check for blood which might be coming from cancers.

Two-year screening pilots in both flexisigmoidoscopy and faecal occult blood testing are currently underway in the UK.