Bowel cancer prevention work

In 2007 our then Director, Professor David Hill, recorded this message as part of a series of videos. Professor Hill has since retired after 44 years of service to Cancer Council Victoria.

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Transcript:

Professor David Hill, Cancer Council Victoria:

Bowel cancer is a common cancer. It's quite dangerous if it's left untreated but it happens to be one of the most curable forms if it's detected and treated early.

About 1,000 people each year in Victoria die from bowel cancer, so that could be dramatically reduced if we were able to screen the population in the appropriate age group.

Bowel cancer screening is a real breakthrough in cancer prevention. What people do, is a process that can be done at home. They're sent a kit, which they can use to collect small samples of faeces - bowel motions - and that sample is sent off to a laboratory, and in the laboratory there's a process which is designed to detect small samples of blood.

Bowel cancer screening is easy. It can be done at home - you don't have to go to a clinic to do it. It takes about 10 seconds and it's done in privacy.

Bowel cancer screening is important for people once they get to the age of about 50. Here we have the most common cancer, if you combine men and women together, and we would be able to reduce the mortality from that disease by up to 30%. In fact, bowel cancer screening is as effective against bowel cancer as screening mammography is for breast cancer.

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