It may not be glamorous, but this simple test could save your life
The little pack you see me holding here is an FOBT kit, which is the tool we use for bowel cancer screening in Australia. It works by looking for microscopic amounts of blood in your stool and is recommended to be done every 2 years from age 50 to 74. The government sends this test to eligible participants every 2 years but if you don’t receive it as expected, you can speak to your GP about organizing a test too.
Sadly only 40% of people who receive the kit in the mail actually complete it. If this was increased to just 60% we would save 84,000 Australian lives in the next 20 years. So if you have a kit lying around that you’ve been ignoring, please collect your samples and send it in ASAP! Remind your friends and family to get up to date too.
If you have a positive result from the test, you will likely be referred for a colonoscopy to investigate further. Importantly, if you have any symptoms like visible blood with the stool, recent changes to your bowel habit or unintentional weight loss, a negative screening test does not exclude bowel cancer and you need to speak to your GP regardless of when your last screening test was.