Getting yourself tested for colon cancer

If you're a non-smoker in the UK, male or female, colon cancer is the most likely cancer to kill you.  1 in 17 men and 1 in 20 women are at risk of developing this type of cancer.

This needn’t be the case: colon cancer is one of the easiest cancers to treat if it is detected early. There is a 90% survival rate if it is diagnosed at Stage 1.

Get tested regularly to avoid dying from colon cancer.

It's really important to take up any testing as soon as it is offered to you.  This includes posting back any FIT (poo) test kits that are sent to your home by the NHS as part of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme, which starts from the age of 50.

40tude recommends that you start getting yourself tested from the age of 45.  You can buy a highly-sensitive qFIT (which tests for tiny amounts of blood in your stool) from 40tude’s testing partner Selph via www.selph.co.uk/tests  

Please don't wait until you have symptoms to take up testing, and similarly, please don't wait if you have any symptoms: report these to your doctor, regardless of your age.

If you can, consider enhanced screening, ideally regularly from your mid-40s.  High quality CT Colonography (a CT scanner-based test) or Colonoscopy are methods used to examine the colon for cancer and its precursor, polyps. The NHS is not able to offer these forms of screening to the whole population but that shouldn't stop you considering having one. 

Testing is available on the NHS.  You should take this up as soon as you are offered it.  What is offered depends on where you live: