BOWEL cancer home testing kits are being rolled out to 58-year-olds in England in a huge step towards beating the disease, Sun Health can reveal.
It’s a win for Trending In The News’s No Time 2 Lose campaign, which was spearheaded by Dame Deborah James, and called on the Government to lower the screening age from 60 to 50, like it is already in Scotland.
Sun columnist Dame Deborah James spearheaded Trending In The News’s No Time 2 Lose campaign, fighting for the bowel cancer screening age to be reduced to 50
The disease is the UK’s second deadliest cancer, claiming 16,500 lives each year.
But it can be cured – if it’s caught early enough.
More than nine in ten patients will live five years or longer if it’s spotted early and treated swiftly.
Sun writer Dame Debs died from the disease in June, aged 40, but not before she’d raised more than £7million for her Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK.
And now even more lives will be saved, thanks to the rollout of home testing kits to more people in their 50s.
Called a Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT), the kits are designed to detect early-stage bowel cancer – often even before any other symptoms show up – by picking up traces of blood in just a single gram of poo.
And you don’t have to see a doctor or undergo an embarrassing examination.
You just pop a sample of your poo in a provided tube and post it back to the NHS free of charge for further testing.
The kits are already available to everyone aged 60 to 74 and most 56-year-olds in England, and the NHS is gradually expanding eligibility to everyone aged 50 to 59.
National clinical director for cancer Professor Peter Johnson, said: “I would encourage anyone who is sent a kit to return their tests as quickly as you can, because this can detect early signs of bowel cancer and ensure that anyone affected can get treatment for the disease sooner, while making it more accessible for people, including vulnerable groups, to do at home.”
He added: “It is still important that anyone experiencing symptoms, such as blood in their poo or severe stomach pain, no matter their age, should speak to their GP as soon as possible – so please don’t be prudish about poo and get checked if you have any worrying signs.”
For more information, or to request a kit, call the free bowel cancer screening helpline on 0800 707 60 60.
