Your Health
News and advice from Hull Teaching Primary Care Trust

Don't sit on your symptoms

May 21 – 27 is National Cancer Prevention Week and whilst quite often the focus is on the higher profile cancers such as breast, lung and ovarian, there is one cancer which quite literally slips to the bottom of the pile – Bowel Cancer.
But, quite shockingly, one in 20 of us are at risk of developing bowel cancer at some point in our lifetime, making it the third most common cancer in the UK after breast and lung cancer. Nearly 16,000 a year die from bowel cancer, and of those people diagnosed with the disease about 80% are 60 years of age or older.
If detected early, the chances of successful treatment are extremely good. However, because of the nature of the illness many people are embarrassed to talk about it or even worse, many people who develop the early symptoms of the disease, such as rectal bleeding, choose to ignore the signs and often put off a visit to their GP until it's too late to treat effectively.
To really try and reverse the number of people developing the illness, successful detection is the key, even before any symptoms are shown. In order to try and do this an NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme is being introduced in Hull, one of the first cities in the country to be involved in this new screening programme
A campaign will target all men and women between the ages of 60 – 69 (the age group most at risk), who will be able to carry out a simple test that they can do in the privacy of their own home.
Over the next two years letters will be sent out to all people in this age group inviting them to participate in the programme. If they agree, a screening kit will be sent out to them with full instructions how to carry out the test. Although the test in itself, will not detect bowel cancer, it will indicate whether possible further tests, such as a colonoscopy may be necessary. The screening should be repeated at two year intervals.
For those people not within the age group being screened there is much that can be done now in order to minimise the possibility of developing bowel cancer in the future. Increasing fruit, vegetables and fibre in your diet can reduce the risk of some cancers and a high fibre diet is particularly recognised for reducing the risk of constipation, irritable bowel syndrome as well as helping combat bowel cancer. There is also evidence that being obese can significantly increase your chances of developing the disease, so maintaining a healthy weight is very important to help to combat bowel cancer as well as avoiding a great number of other health problems.
For further information about the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme visit www.cancerscreening.nhs.uk or call 0800 707 60 60.