NHS bowel cancer tests are missing a third of tumours

SORRY, says the doctor, it’s bowel cancer. The verdict on that nagging, uncomfortable pain in your stomach, which you had put down to stress, is scary. And it’s confusing – because just months earlier, a routine test gave you the all-clear. How could this have happened?

That test you had was bowel scope screening, introduced in England in 2013 for those over 55 and said to cut the risk of developing the disease – which kills one Briton every 30 minutes – by a third.

But according to figures published in the medical journal The Lancet, it fails to detect about a third of abnormal growths and potentially fatal tumours.

In fact, the one-off examination leaves two- thirds of the bowel unexamined – something t hat patients are seldom told.

Now leading bowel cancer experts have warned that the tests are lulling many into a false sense of security and mean they ignore potentially hazardous symptoms.

‘ A negative result on a bowelcancer screening doesn’t exclude the fact that you’ve got bowel cancer,’ says Andrew Beggs, a consultant colorectal surgeon and Cancer Research UK clinical scientist. ‘It just makes it less likely.’

Fiona Osgun, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, says: ‘Bowel-cancer screening saves lives. But it’s only looking at certain portions of the bowel, so if you happen to have polyps or bowel cancer growing further up your colon, then it won’t detect that.

‘ The golden rule is that if you notice something that is unusual for you, even after screening, go and see a doctor.’ THE CANCERS DEVELOP IN UNSCREENED PARTS MORE than 40,000 Britons are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year, and it’s the second-biggest cancer killer.

But as the symptoms – such as bloating and diarrhoea – are often passed off as irritable bowel syndrome, many people are only diagnosed l ate, and when t he tumour has grown larger.

And once the cancer spreads to several parts of the body, there’s just a seven per cent chance of living longer than five years.

Previously, in an effort to boost early diagnosis, routine, biennial screenings for NHS patients in England above the age of 60 were rolled out. They comprised an at-home stool- sample kit – doctors then checked for microscopic traces of blood that indicate cancers in any part of the bowel. But in 2013, a new test was introduced for patients between the ages of 55 and 60 to detect the disease even earlier.

The move was welcomed by experts, given that between 2004 and 2016, rates of bowel cancer in those aged between 40 and 49 increased by almost two per cent. The one-off test – known as a bowel scope – involves a thin tube with a tiny camera being inserted into the back passage.

It checks for small growths, called polyps, which, if not removed could lead to cancer, but also looks for ready-formed tumours.

A bowel cancer is spotted in about one in 300 people who are screened. About half of all GP surgeries in England invite patients for the test, which takes place during a ten- minute appointment, sometimes with a nurse.

Some research suggests it cuts the risk of dying by 40 per cent. But the bowel scope checks only the lowest third of your bowel – the rectum and the left side of the colon.

Statistically, this is where most polyps are f ound. But in t he depths of the bowel, pre-cancerous growths and even tumours could go undetected. According to the Office for National Statistics, a third of bowel cancers diagnosed in 55-to59- year-olds develop in these unscreened parts. Yet the over-60s benefit from a far superior stool sample test, called the faecal immunochemical home test kit, or FIT, which examines the entire bowel.

Last year, the Government announced plans to lower the age of FIT t ests to t he over- 50s. The pledge came after a wealth of research showed the risk of bowel cancer rises steeply above the age of 50. But currently, there’s no clarity over when this will come into force – or whether this will replace the bowel scope altogether.

NHS England said it was working to i mplement this ‘ significant change’, which would require ‘many extra staff’ to be trained.