BOWEL TUMOURS MISSED

SCREENING for bowel cancer (the UK’s fourth most common cancer) was paused in April. Within weeks, more than a million screening tests had not been sent out in England alone, says Genevieve Edwards, chief executive of the charity Bowel Cancer UK. Due to the pause ‘we’re potentially looking at around 2,000 to 3,000 undiagnosed cases’, she says. ‘Bowel cancer is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer, but it is treatable,’ she says. ‘Nearly everyone survives bowel cancer if diagnosed at the earliest stage.’ Screening is usually offered to everyone aged 60 to 74 (from 50 in Scotland) every two years and involves using a home-testing kit to take a stool sample which you post to a laboratory. If blood is detected, the next step is a colonoscopy, using a tiny camera to look inside the bowel. Disruption to routine screenings and referrals could lead to an almost ten per cent increase in deaths in England over the next five years from cancers, including bowel cancer, reported The Lancet Oncology in July. In mid August, Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge became the first in England to restart the screening programme, while people in Wales who missed out have been given priority. Screening is due to start again soon in Scotland. People who need further investigation via a colonoscopy are also facing delays — this service has restarted at a greatly reduced rate (two or three a day, instead of eight to ten) because it is aerosol-generating. Another concern is the fall in GP referrals, down by 70-75 per cent in April.