Oxford professor issues bowel cancer symptoms warning

In April every year, there is a focus on the early detection and prevention, education and raising awareness of bowel cancer.

Also known as colorectal cancer, it begins in the large bowel and can affect the colon or rectum with common symptoms including changes in bowel habits, blood in stool and abdominal pain.

In the UK, where bowel cancer accounts for 12 per cent of all new cases, incidence rates have decreased by around four per cent in the last decade.

However, Sir Neil Mortensen, professor of Colorectal Surgery in the University of Oxford Medical School and chair of the Occtopus, the Oxford Colon Cancer Trust, said there has been a “worrying upward trend in the number of under-50s presenting.”

He warns symptom sufferers to not “sit on their butt” and taken them seriously.

He said: “Since it is thought by both the public and the profession to be a disease of older patients the symptoms can be too easily ignored or dismissed and then diagnosed later with a more advanced form of cancer.

“If there are persisting symptoms in young people or those with family history of the cancer, they need to get them investigated.”

Free poo test screening starts at 50 years old and is offered every two years until 74. Those over 75 can request a test kit by phoning the screening helpline 0800 707 6060.

The test looks for tiny amounts of hidden human blood and if positive a colonoscopy is arranged. Mostly, only benign polyps are discovered but these are removed because if left they turn into cancers.