Better screening for bowel cancer now possible
Doctors are hopeful that within a decade a more comprehensive test will be designed to identify and treat the people who are more likely to develop bowel cancer. They have identified a gene – carried by about half the population – which increases a person’s risk of getting the disease, which is the second most common cause of death from cancer.
It’s one of the most dangerous types of cancers, as often by the time it is diagnosed the cancer has had plenty of time to develop. But if it’s discovered and treated early enough, the cure rate is 90%.
Doctors are hoping those rates will improve markedly thanks to a new genetic breakthrough in the UK, which could lead to patients being screened more effectively for bowel cancer. Scientists who examined the gene makeup of more than 30,000 people discovered a gene variation thought to be responsible for one in 10 bowel cancer cases.
The discovery potentially doubles the number of people who can be identified as being most at risk from the disease. It paves the way for the development of a genetic test and gives an investigator a chance to find perhaps a way of stopping the bowel cancers occurring.
