Cancer screening: Bowel cancer screening
About bowel cancer
Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, can affect any part of the large bowel, which includes the colon and rectum. It may also be referred to as colon cancer or rectal cancer, depending on where the cancer is located. Bowel cancer is the second‑most common cause of cancer deaths in NSW. The risk of bowel cancer increases with age.
Projections show that by 2021, every week in NSW:
- 111 people will be diagnosed with bowel cancer
- 35 people will die from bowel cancer.[42]
Bowel cancer is a priority focus area of the NSW Cancer Plan and the NSW Government’s Leading Better Value Care program of work.[43]
About bowel cancer screening
The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program is a Commonwealth Government‑funded program that invites people aged 50–74 years to do a free bowel screening test every two years. This test involves collecting small samples of bowel motions (faeces/poo), which are sent to a laboratory for testing.
Called the immunochemical faecal occult blood test (iFOBT), it can detect small amounts of blood in the sample. It cannot diagnose bowel cancer, but a positive result indicates that colonoscopy is needed to rule out bowel cancer. A colonoscopy is a procedure to look inside the bowel.
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) endorsed Clinical practice guidelines for the prevention, early detection and management of colorectal cancer (2017) recommends two‑yearly bowel screening for people aged 50–74.[44]
Benefits of bowel cancer screening
The aim of screening is to find bowel cancer early, when it can be successfully treated in more than 90% of cases.[45]
Between 2006 and 2010, 44% of people whose bowel cancer was diagnosed after screening had early‑stage disease. This proportion is compared with only 24% of those diagnosed after seeing a health professional about symptoms.[46]
People who are diagnosed at the earliest stage have a 99% five‑year survival rate compared with a 13% five‑year survival rate for those diagnosed at the latest stage.[47]
Overall key findings:
- Bowel screening participation for people aged 50–74 years in NSW increased from 33.0% in 2013 to 39.5% in 2018.
- In every age group, men have lower participation rates than women in bowel screening.
Annual bowel screening participation rate* for people aged 50–74, by local health district (LHD) (ranked), 2013 and 2018
Key findings:
- Bowel screening participation for people aged 50–74 years in NSW increased from 33.0% in 2013 to 39.5% in 2018.
- Bowel screening participation rates have increased in all NSW LHDs.
- Bowel screening participation rate for people aged 50-74 ranged from 35.6% to 44.3% across LHDs, in 2018.
N= Number of invitations sent in 2018.
* The participation rate is the proportion of the eligible population invited to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) who returned a completed immunochemical faecal occult blood test (iFOBT).
Notes:
1. Data source: National Bowel Cancer Screening Program Reporting Portal, June 2019.
2. Participation rates shown in this report vary slightly from data published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare due to variations in methodology.
Annual bowel screening participation rate*, by gender and age group, NSW, 2018
Key finding:
- In 2018, men had lower participation rates than women in bowel screening in every age group between 50 and 74 years.
N= Number of invitations sent in 2018.
* The participation rate is the proportion of the eligible population invited to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) who returned a completed immunochemical faecal occult blood test (iFOBT).
Notes:
1. Data source: National Bowel Cancer Screening Program Reporting Portal, June 2019.
2. Participation rates shown in this report vary slightly from data published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare due to variations in methodology.
| Year | Age of participants invited to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program |
| 2014 | 50, 55, 60, 65 |
| 2015 | 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 74 |
| 2016 | 50, 55, 60, 64, 65, 70, 72, 74 |
| 2017 | 50, 54, 55, 58, 60, 64, 68, 70, 72, 74 |
| 2018 | 50, 54, 58 ,60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74 |
| 2019 | 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74 |
| 2020 | 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74 |
Biennial bowel screening participation rate for people aged 50–74, by Australian state and territory (ranked), 2013–2014 and 2016–2017
Key findings:
- In 2016–2017, NSW had the second‑lowest bowel screening biennial participation rate for people aged 50–74 years across all Australian states and territories.
N= Number of invitations sent in 2016–2017.
Notes:
1. Data source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Bowel Screening Monitoring Report, 2016 and 2019.
2. The participation rates reported here may be slightly different from data presented elsewhere in this report because the data are from different sources that use different methodologies.
3. The participation data reported are based on a biennial reporting period. In previous AIHW reports, participation was reported by financial year; therefore, this information cannot be compared with previous AIHW Bowel Screening Monitoring Reports.
Why are different time periods and dates reported?
Cancer information is collected from many different sources, so it takes time to review and analyse the data. Different pieces of information may be collected over different time periods, or reported at different times. This means not all the measures reported here have the same dates.
The information presented is the most recent available for each measure at the time this report was written.
Why are confidence intervals reported here?
Confidence intervals are included when a small sample is used to represent the overall population, because there is a chance of an error due to this scaling.
In this report, a 95% confidence interval is presented only on charts where a sample of the population is used. This interval can be thought of as a margin of error.
The larger the sample size, the smaller the confidence interval range. The smaller the sample size, the larger the confidence interval range.
