Bowel cancer: Self-testing kit ‘saved my life’

(BBC News) — Wendy Lyons, lives in Nottinghamshire, U.K., a county leading the way in the use of Faecal Immunochemical Tests or FIT.

The kit can tell doctors whether a more expensive and uncomfortable colonoscopy is needed.

Hospital bosses hope they can use it to find cancer earlier in people who would not normally be tested for the disease.

Nottingham GPs were the first in England to offer tests to patients with symptoms of bowel cancer other than spots of blood in their faeces or an obvious lump.

The test, which costs the NHS about $30 per person compared with $800 for a colonoscopy, is this year being sent to everyone over 60 as part of the national screening programme and is already widely used in Scotland. (…)

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