Are you ignoring that bowel cancer screening kit?
Despite having been introduced 10 years ago in some areas of the UK - and the fact the programme could save over 2,000 lives a year by 2025 - less than half the people offered the home tests aren’t completing them.
In some communities, uptake is as low as a third, and men, as well as people in deprived and ethnic minority communities, are the least likely to take part.
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Hide AdApril’s Bowel Cancer Awareness is aiming to change this, in a bid to help more people detect changes early - which means better outcomes, higher survival rates and even the chance to stop cancer from developing.
A COMMON CANCER
More than 41,500 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer, and around 16,000 people die from it every year, making it the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.
However, if it’s caught early, many survive - in fact, there’s a 98% five-year survival rate for those diagnosed at the earliest stage, and by far the best way of catching bowel cancer early is through screening.