Scottish bowel screening trial succeeds

Routine bowel screening can cut deaths from bowel cancer by 27 percent, a latest Scottish study finds. The result was presented at the National Cancer Research Institute's (NCRI) conference in Liverpool. Funded by the Scottish government's health department, the study involved over 370,000 people aged 50 to 69 from Scotland. Every participant was given a FOBt (faecal occult blood test) kit-- which was used to collect their stool samples-- every two years between 2000 and 2007. The samples were sent to a laboratory for hidden traces of blood test. Under the monitor of the researchers, the participants saw a 27 percent fewer bowel cancer deaths than a similar number of people from Scotland uninvolved in the trial. "For the first time, we can see the effects of an FOBt-based colorectal cancer screening program in the real world of the NHS," cheered author Robert Steele from the Bowel Screening Research Centre in Dundee. According to a BBC report, when bowel cancer is detected at the earliest stage, 90% of patients survive for at least five years. After the disease has spread, the survival rate is just 6%.