Experts hope easier test kit will help to save more lives Test kit will help to save more lives
A NEW, simpler at-home test for bowel cancer could be rolled out nationally following a ‘spectacular’ boost in numbers using it in a pilot study.
Early results showed almost double the uptake of the new test among those who had previously chosen not to participate in bowel cancer screening.
Colorectal (CRC) cancer is the most common type of gastro-intestinal cancer in Europe and the annual incidence is predicted to rise by 12 per cent by 2020.
It is treatable when detected early, with a 90 to 95 per cent survival rate – but uptake of the existing screening method is low, at just 54 per cent in the UK.
This is thought to be because the test, which requires three sample stool tests, is unappealing to use.
The newer FIT (faecal immunochemical testing) kit requires just a single stool sample to check for blood, which is a better indicator of CRC, and it also has a simpler collection device in an easy-to-return postal package.
Professor Stephen Halloran, director of the Bowel Cancer Screening Hub for the South of England, who co-ran the pilot, says the FIT test is more sensitive too. ‘It detects only human blood [the existing test can pick up animal blood traces from dietary sources, leading to false positives] and smaller levels of bleeding, so it can spot cancers at an earlier stage.
‘These are spectacular results, which give us the opportunity to save more lives,’ he says. ‘The findings are being reviewed with a view to identifying a process of adoption. But the data is so strong and results so beneficial, we hope for a national roll-out in the next few years.’
The pilot of FIT, carried out with 40,000 people in the North West, Midlands and the South of England, showed almost double the uptake compared with the current test among those who had previously chosen not to participate.
The results were announced at Cancer Research UK’s National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative research conference in London this month.