Britons want NHS recommendations on bowel cancer screenings

UK residents want the NHS to provide recommendations regarding if they should attend bowel cancer screenings, a study has found.

Research published in the British Journal of Cancer has found that 84 per cent of respondents wanted such advice, while more than three quarters wanted all the information available on the topic.

There was no difference found in the preference for a recommendation between richer and poorer people, but men were more probable than women to seek one.

By 2025, it is estimated that bowel screening will save over 2,000 lives every year, with Cancer Research UK set to fund a trial into the use of the Flexi-scope technology.

The system hopes to stop people in their mid-fifties from suffering from bowel cancer by finding and removing polyps which could later develop into the disease.

The government has promised to fund a national programme of Flexi-scope screening, which will take place early next year.

Professor Jane Wardle, lead author and director of Cancer Research UK’s health behaviour research centre at UCL, said: "We have seen that most people who wanted a screening recommendation also wanted all the available information. This suggests that advice from an expert is an important part of the decision-making process and not an alternative to it.

"The study also showed that most people in the UK have a high level of trust in the NHS, which may explain why so many people are so keen to have a clear recommendation from it."

Cancer Research UK also recently worked alongside Lorus to co-develop the IL-17E drug, which aims to treat solId tumours.

It is believed the solution elicits an immune response that attacks cancer cells, with technology from both Lorus and Genentech being used to counteract the disease.

Scientists from Lorus were the first to discover the anticancer properties of IL-17E. It was selected after a rigorous peer-review process carried out by Cancer Research UK's New Agents Committee.

Posted by Fiona Griffiths