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Bowel Cancer Tests: Why You Should Do Them
Mary Ling • Nov 30, 2018
When people turn 50 some celebrate the occasion with cold one for the old one.
Others lament the extra wrinkles in the mirror and many will laugh off the strange little package they received in the mail, asking them to send a small sample of their stool off for medical testing, as part of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.
While some are delighted for the opportunity to send the government a personalised stool (bottoms up!), new research shows that 40% of Australians are abandoning the Faecal Occult Blood Test, leaving it languishing in the bathroom cabinet.
Why is this so scary?
Because this easy, accessible, three-minute bowel cancer testing is still the best tool we have to prevent Australia’s second biggest cancer killer.
And here on the Central Coast the figures are particularly alarming – with some areas such as Wyong notching up a whopping 44 per cent above the state average for colorectal cancer.
Younger people are not immune either.
Bowel cancer is now the most common cause of death in people (25-29), all fuelled by the global obesity pandemic.
The latest US study of 500,000 people last year found that Gen Xers and Millennials were in fact more at risk than even baby boomers.
Those born in 1990 are at twice the risk of bowel cancer and four times the risk of rectal cancer than those born in 1950.
As a nation we need to look at how we can improve death rates in something that is so preventable.
Bowel Cancer Australia can reveal that newly released medical guidelines have seen colonoscopy wait times for patients blow out by a massive 300 per cent – from the previous 30 days to 120 days.
Research shows diagnostic intervals exceeding 120 days are associated with poorer outcomes, yet 90 per cent of National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) participants with a positive screen are waiting between 116-181 days.
That’s why I am a big supporter of Bowel Cancer Australia’s recent push for no patient to wait longer than 30 days for a diagnostic colonoscopy – should they present with bowel cancer suggestive symptoms such as rectal bleeding that last longer than two weeks, or who receive a positive test result.
We also need to ensure that those who truly need it get access to the public system in a timely way; while privately insured patients proactively use the private system if a diagnostic colonoscopy is required, rather than waiting until it’s too late.
Certainly, for anyone aged 50-74, it’s a good idea to do the bowel screening test, which from next year will be offered every two years.
As individuals we need to start changing the way we discuss bowel cancer too.
If we can pooper-scoop our dog’s droppings, surely we can poke a stick in our own and send it off for testing?
Women almost always action a breast lump which is often benign – but far fewer women (or men) do anything about rectal bleeding because they think it’s just “another” haemorrhoid or it’s too plain unpleasant or embarrassing to discuss.
The good news is that if bowel cancer is detected earlier, more than 90 per cent of it is treatable.
So that’s why we just have to get on with it – because dying of embarrassment on the Central Coast is still a lot better than dying of bowel cancer.
Bowel Cancer Tests: Why You Should Do Them was published in The Express Advocate on 30 November 2018.
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