Emma Barrow, Clinical Research Fellow; Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Manchester Children’s Hospital/Manchester University.
Bowel cancer is the second most common cancer of both sexes in the UK and Ireland. It caused over 16,000 deaths in 2000, which is 1 in 9 of cancer deaths and 1 in 35 of all deaths. Despite modern therapy, overall average 5-year survival from bowel cancer is no more than 40%.
Some patients have a very high risk of developing bowel cancer. These are people with a very strong family history of either bowel cancer itself or gynaecological malignancies. Detection of these individuals is difficult because the inherited phenomenon is not straightforward. However, people with a family history who carry a particular gene have an 80% risk of developing bowel cancer.
Detection of this gene is difficult and costly. The present study is examining a simple method of identifying this genetic abnormality using a special stain before microscopic examination of samples from the bowel. Identifying at risk individuals will enable us to target endoscopic screening (by means of colonoscopic examination) among high-risk members of the public.
This page was last updated on 20-07-2011