Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer after non-melanoma skin cancer (1) and prostate cancer, with one in 22 Australians developing bowel cancer by the age of 85. It is the second most common cause of cancer-related death in Australia, after lung cancer.
The good news is that if bowel cancer is detected and treated at the earliest stage, the cure rate is around 90%. Several tests are being used in Australia to screen for bowel cancer and the Federal Government has recently introduced a National Bowel Cancer Screening program.
Cancer Council Australia’s Bowel Cancer Screening Committee has developed a position statement which provides background information about the various screening tests available, and recommendations about the regular screening of people aged over 50 years through faecal occult blood tests (FOBTs). There is a section on people with a strong family history of bowel cancer.
(1) Non-melanoma skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer according to surveys, however there is no reporting of actual cases to cancer registries.
This page was last updated October 2007
This position statement was last reviewed April 2008