A national programme is to be introduced to screen for colon and rectal cancer, which in Malta claims the lives of about 100 people a year, more than breast cancer.
Health Ministry sources said the programme will be included in the National Cancer Plan to be released within the next few weeks. However, there are no details yet on when it is expected to be in place.
Last summer it was reported that the ministry was studying the feasibility of introducing a colorectal screening programme following the success of the national breast screening programme.
“We will be going ahead with it,” a ministry spokesman told The Times yesterday.
The breast screening programme has, since its introduction in October last year, led to some 45 women being diagnosed with very early stages of cancer, giving them a better chance of survival.
Colorectal cancer actually kills more people than breast cancer. Every year, roughly 90-100 people die of the disease, with the latest figure being 112 in 2008, while breast cancer has led to between 60 and 70 deaths per year over the past few years.
The plan is to target men and women aged 50 to 74, who have no symptoms of cancer, and screen them for potential cancers in the colon and rectum, parts of the gut which may easily hide this killer disease.
The screening programme will seek to detect early stage cancers, sometimes even before lesions turn cancerous. Tracing a cancer early will make treatment more effective, less invasive and in some cases even cure patients.
Although sources remained mum on the exact details, previous statements by the ministry had indicated the programme would be in line with the 2003 EU Council Recommendation on Cancer Screening. This suggests that a “faecal occult blood” test is done to screen for colorectal cancer in men and women aged 50 to 74. This test, known in the medical world simply by its initials, FOB, looks for blood in the stools by placing a small sample on card, pad, or cloth wipe. This is then tested to determine whether blood is present.
Blood in the stools may be the only symptom of colorectal cancer but not all such cases are caused by cancer, as other conditions like Crohn’s disease and haemorrhoids may also cause blood to be present. These other conditions will then need to be excluded for the test to be positive.
In Malta, approximately 180 new cases of colon cancer are detected per year. An estimated 1.58 million new cancer cases (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) occurred in the EU in 1998 – of these 14 per cent were colorectal cancers.