Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in June aims to raise awareness of Australia's second deadliest cancer, which claims the lives of 103 Australians every week, or 5,336 people a year.
In addition, some 296 Australians will be diagnosed with bowel cancer every week, adding up to 15,352 people a year.
While the risk of bowel cancer increases significantly with age, the disease doesn't discriminate, affecting men and women, young and old.
Red Apple Day on Wednesday 16 June is Bowel Cancer Australia's Annual Giving Day, when Australians are encouraged to support the vital work of the charity.
In an attempt to reduce the incidence of the disease, the Government has a National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, which is based on eligible members of the community being sent test kits which they can then use at home.
The effectiveness of this program could be increased through greater utilisation of community pharmacies.
The availability of these kits through community pharmacies, with staff explaining how to use them and the importance of testing, could greatly increase uptake.
This view is based on evidence gained through the 2010 BowelScreen Australia program, which was a collaboration between the Guild and Bowel Cancer Australia.
In the first year of that program, more than 14,000 consumers were screened, of which 80 per cent were ‘first time’ consumers of a bowel cancer screening service. This resulted in 864 positive results (a 6 per cent positivity rate) and significantly, 42 per cent of people accessing the kit were outside of the screening program age eligibility.
A major part of the success of this and other programs is the accessibility of community pharmacies. On average, 97 per cent of consumers in capital cities are no further than 2.5km from a pharmacy. In regional areas, 66 per cent of people are within 2.5km of a pharmacy. The network of more than 5,900 well-distributed community pharmacies could enable greater access to face-to-face health professional advice and promote participation in the health programs.
Clearly there is a great opportunity to extend the success of screening programs by making the kits available through community pharmacies.
