National Bowel Cancer Screening Program monitoring report
The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program monitoring report 2008 has been released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
It shows that the first phase of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, aimed at decreasing the incidence and mortality of bowel cancer, provided test kits to just under one million Australians aged 55 and 65 years between August 2006 and June 2008.
These tests detect blood in the faeces, which may indicate cancer.
About 43% of people provided with kits took advantage of the free test. Approximately 8% of people taking the test had blood detected and of these, an estimated 5% were found to have bowel cancer. A further 12% had pre-cancerous polyps.
The repoort is available at www.aihw.gov.au/publications
