Cancer Research UK today predicts a huge drop in deaths from bowel cancer if people use the self testing kit that is being sent to men and women in their sixties throughout the country.
Researchers have calculated there would be up to 20,000 fewer deaths over the next 20 years if just 60 per cent of those eligible for bowel screening went ahead with the simple test.
The kit is being sent out to people aged between 60 and 69 as part of the national bowel cancer screening programme that the NHS is gradually rolling out in the UK.
And if even more people completed the test the decrease in mortality would be even greater. Researchers calculated that an 80 per cent uptake would result in as many as 25,000 deaths from bowel cancer being prevented over the next 20 years.
These figures, based on a pilot of the bowel screening programme and predictive scientific modelling, launch Cancer Research UK's 2007 campaign - Screening Matters - in which the charity is urging government to get an extra three million eligible people to take up invitations to breast, cervical and bowel screening.
Professor Max Parkin, Cancer Research UK epidemiologist at the Wolfson Institute, London, said: "Our research looked at a realistic scenario where uptake is about 60 per cent and compared those results with an optimistic scenario where uptake could rise to 80 percent. In both cases thousands of deaths could be prevented. But for the purpose of this calculation we assumed 20 per cent of people wouldn't do this test."
There are around 35,000 cases of bowel cancer diagnosed each year in the UK. And more than 16,000 people die from the disease. Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK.
The bowel screening programme's self test kit is designed to allow people to take faecal samples in the privacy of their own home and send them for testing. If any blood is found they are then invited for a colonoscopy. The test should be repeated every two years.
Matthew Wright, presenter of the Channel 5 show The Wright Stuff and patron of the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK, yesterday spoke in support of the Bowel Screening Programme following his own fear of bowel cancer.
"Bowel cancer has torn through my family, taking both my father and grandfather. But the bowel cancer screening programme is a fantastic opportunity for people to be checked. It is a simple test, easy to do in your home and a way of putting your mind at rest. I hope everyone who is sent a kit makes sure they use it."