National Bowel Cancer Screening Program report 2011-12

The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program : July 2011-June 2012 monitoring report has been released by the AIHW.  It presents statistics on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program for Australians invited to take part during this period, when over 320,000 people were screened, with about 22,500 found to require further assessment. One out of every 15 assessments recorded detected an advanced adenoma (pre-cancerous lesion), and a bowel cancer was detected in 1 out of every 32 assessments.  

The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) aims to reduce the incidence, illness and mortality related to bowel cancer in Australia by screening to detect cancers and pre-cancerous lesions in their early stages.  As in previous years, women were more likely to screen than men, but men had higher rates of screen-detected bowel cancers and overall incidence and mortality.  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants, those who lived in regional and remote regions and in areas of lower socioeconomic status, had higher rates of positive screening, yet lower rates of follow-up colonoscopies than other participants.