Europe Should Consider Shifting to Bowel Cancer Screening to Save Lives

European governments should divert funds to routine bowel cancer tests from less effective breast and prostate screening programs, scientists said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

The scientists presented what they called "irrefutable" evidence that bowel screening saves lives. "There is now an irrefutable case for devoting some of the resources from breast and prostate cancer screening to the early detection of colorectal (bowel) cancer," he said.

A large European study published last year found that breast screening programs over-diagnose about four cases for every 1,000 women aged between 50 and 69 who are screened. Colorectal cancer kills more than 600,000 people a year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. In Europe some 400,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year.

Results of a study conducted by Autier using data from 11 European countries between 1989 and 2010 showed that the greater the proportions of men and women routinely screened for bowel cancer, the greater the reductions in death rates. In Austria, for example, where 61 percent of those studied reported having had colorectal screening tests, deaths from this form of cancer dropped by 39 percent for men and 47 percent for women over the decade.

Meanwhile in Greece, where only 8 percent of males had had bowel cancer screening, death rates rose by 30 percent for men. In the light of the results, Cornelis van de Velde, an oncologist at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands and president of the European Cancer Organisation, said it was "very disappointing" there are such wide differences in European governments' approaches to colorectal screening.

"People over 50 should be informed of the availability of the test, and pressure should be put on national health services to put more effort into organizing screening programs," he told the conference.