Almost 200 cases of bowel cancer have been detected by BowelScreen, the National Bowel Screening Programme, since it began last year, early results show.

Some 2,500 people are newly diagnosed with bowel (colorectal) cancer in Ireland every year and around 1,000 people die from it annually, making it the second most common cause of cancer death in Ireland.

Currently, over half of people with this type of cancer are diagnosed in the later stages of the disease, which means that they require more complex treatments and their chance of survival is lower.

The aim of BowelScreen is to detect the disease at an earlier stage when it is easier to treat and the chance of survival is much higher.

BowelScreen began last year and currently offers free screening to people aged 60-69. So far, over 250,000 people have been invited to take part and the current participation rate is 45%. From these, almost 200 cases of bowel cancer have already been detected.

"Some 95% of the tests are normal and those people will be recalled after two years for screening again. It is just 5% that have a positive test and require a colonoscopy," explained Dr Alan Smith, medical director of the HSE National Cancer Screening Service (NCSS).

Dr Smith noted that so far, women have been better than men at accepting the screening invitation. He also noted that while the participation rate of 45% is broadly in line with similar programmes in other countries, the aim is to increase this rate to more than 50%.

"I'm confident we will get it to that figure by the end of next year but we want to drive it higher than that. The more people we screen, the more cancers we will pick up and continual education of the public and promotion of the programme will help," Dr Smith commented.

He emphasised that these are just early results. The programme has a two-year screening cycle, so full results will not be available until the end of 2015.

"The key area we will be judging the screening programme on is whether we are detecting early-stage cancers as opposed to late stage. That will reduce mortality and that is the ultimate goal of the programme. It will take two or three screening rounds to confirm this, but based on international experience, there is no doubt this will happen. This programme will save lives," Dr Smith insisted.

He made his comments at the annual winter meeting of the Irish Society of Gastroenterology.

For more information on BowelScreen, click here