Bowel cancer success predicted

Bowel cancer success predicted

Screening will be introduced

The number of deaths from bowel cancer will fall sharply by the year 2020, say experts.

The introduction of screening and improved treatment could save thousands of lives every year, they predict.

Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in men and women in the UK.

However, 80% of bowel cancer cases can be treated successfully if caught at an early stage.

Dr Wendy Atkin, deputy director of the Cancer Research UK Colorectal Unit at St Mark's Hospital, said: "Once bowel screening is made available, deaths from the disease will become less common and the disease will be more treatable.

"Currently only 40% of patients survive for more than five years."

Options

The government is considering two screening options - Faecal Occult Blood Test (FOBT) and Flexible Sigmoidoscopy (Flexi-Scope).

Bowel cancer symptoms

bleeding from the back passage

mucus in the stool, combined with a change in bowel habit

persistent change in bowel habit

stomach ache that won't go away or comes in waves

a lump or swelling in the abdomen

unexplained weight loss

Professor John Northover, director of the Cancer Research UK Colorectal Unit at St Mark's Hospital, said: "The biggest step forward in the next decade is likely to be screening - as a result we will see the number of people dying from this disease fall dramatically.

"Research at the molecular level should also help us predict more precisely the behaviour of individual tumours.

"This will allow us to do smaller operations without chemotherapy or radiotherapy for the early, 'low aggression' tumours, while precisely targeting increasingly powerful drugs at the more 'high aggression' tumours."

Bowel cancer is most common in people over the age of 50, although younger people can still suffer from the disease.

The symptoms of bowel cancer often go unrecognised and the cancer progresses to an advanced stage if untreated.

Awareness of bowel cancer has increased over the last decade, which has helped reduce the stigma attached to the disease.

Bowel cancer develops as a result of damage to genes within cells lining the bowel.

It is not known precisely what causes this, but hereditary factors and diet make this damage more likely to occur.

It is thought that up to 80% of bowel cancer cases are related to diet, and up to 10% are due to hereditary factors.

Tests

The Faecal Occult Blood Test (FOBT) tests for hidden blood in the stool and is a test for early cancer.

Trials have shown that it cuts deaths from the disease by up to 20% if used every two years from age 50.

A positive FOBT is followed by a colonoscopy or barium enema to confirm the diagnosis.

A Flexi-Scope is a flexible, lighted tube which can be inserted into the back passage to look for benign growths in the lower part of the bowel - these growths can turn cancerous.

Two thirds of all bowel cancers develop in this area of the bowel.

Latest figures from Cancer Research UK show that in 1999 there were 34,661 British cases - an increase of 4,000 per year compared with a decade ago.

During the same decade however, British deaths dropped by 3,300 per year to 15,764.