So the screening for bowel cancer is also a fairly complex area. In Australia, we have a national programme of faecal occult blood testing, and that’s really to identify those people who require further testing with colonoscopy. There is a school of thought that colonoscopy represents a way of screening, but of course, colonoscopy as a procedure done on many, many people is associated with side effects and problems. And so you have to be very careful when you use it as a screening test that you don’t create more problems than you solve.

Professor Michael Boyer is Medical Oncologist at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse