Life

Charity's warning on late bowel cancer detection

THOUSANDS of lives could be saved - as well as millions of pounds - if people with bowel cancer were diagnosed earlier, a charity has said.

New figures released by the charity Beating Bowel Cancer show the majority of patients are still diagnosed too late.

If every patient with bowel cancer was diagnosed sooner (at stage one or two) 3,200 lives could be saved and the NHS could avert treatment costs of more than £103 million n England alone. Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in Britain and Northern Ireland but those diagnosed with stage one bowel cancer have a 97 per cent chance of survival compared with just 6 per cent when the cancer is more advanced.

As well as providing patients

with a much better chance of survival, it also costs the NHS far less due to the fact that treatment for the earlier stages of cancer is often less intensive and invasive than when it is more advanced.

About 41,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year and around 16,000 people die of it annually. It is the fourth most common cancer in the UK.