Bowel cancer: what you should know

Did you know that bowel cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women in Australia? It’s the diagnosis that no one wants to hear, yet Australia has one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world.

Bowel cancer affects both men and women and your risk of bowel cancer greatly increases as you get older. It’s estimated by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that this year, 1 in 14 Australians will be diagnosed with bowel cancer by their 85^th birthday.

Most people who develop bowel cancer have no family history. That’s why it’s so important to know the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer and participate in bowel cancer screening. In Australia we’re fortunate to have the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, which sends a free screening kit to every eligible Australian in the mail from your 50^th birthday. The test is quick and easy and you can complete it at home. Bowel cancer screening should be completed every two years between the ages of 50 and 74.

It’s typically provided as an outpatient at a day hospital and works by destroying all rapidly dividing cells. However, some healthy cells are also damaged which causes many of the more common side effects of chemotherapy (such as hair loss, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, diarrhoea or constipation and loss of appetite).

Unlike chemotherapy, radiation therapy doesn’t have the same amount of side effects – but it isn’t suitable for every bowel cancer diagnosis.

Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, is the use of radiation to safely treat and manage cancer. Radiation oncologists use radiation to eradicate cancer cells, reduce their growth or relieve symptoms of cancer.

Radiation therapy works by damaging cancer cells while limiting the impact to healthy cells. When a small dose of radiation is given each day over several weeks, normal cells can recover from the radiation, but cancer cells cannot. It is typically a painless treatment, similar to having an x-ray, and is only delivered to the part of the body being treated.