Rotary Bowelscan Qld has received a $50,000 grant to assist in the early detection of bowel cancer.
Do you know a victim of bowel cancer? Would you like to help reduce needless suffering within your local community? Rotary Bowelscan Qld is a project of District 9620, designed to promote bowel cancer awareness throughout Queensland and provide quality sample kits at cost.
While a Federal Health Department funded initiative mails out more than six million bowel cancer screening kits per year – every second year to Australians aged 45 to 74 years – only about 40 per cent of these free kits are turned into samples and returned for testing to Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology.
Research carried out by Australian universities claims that if this conversion rate can be lifted from 40 per cent to 60 per cent, 84,000 Australians lives can be saved over the next 20 years. To increase the conversion rate would be an extraordinary health success story.
The late Doctor Bill Brand, a member of the Rotary Club of Lismore, NSW, introduced the need for Rotary to become proactive in promoting bowel cancer awareness in 1982. He was associated with designing a sample kit for pathology testing for blood in the sample. Blood that is often invisible to the naked eye.
This way, bowel cancer can be picked up early, often still as a polyp, the forerunner of cancer. Confirmation of blood in the sample usually results in a colonoscopy, where polyps are removed, thereby preventing the formation of bowel cancer. “Early detection is your best protection.” It may just save your life!
Speak to your doctor, particularly if you have a family history of bowel cancer.
One in three bowel cancers show there is a family history of testing positive. Ask the question: “Has there ever been bowel cancer in our family tree?” Knowledge is power!
Rotary Bowelscan Qld has received a grant of $50,000 from the Queensland Gambling Community Benefit Fund. The plan, to be implemented from March 2025, is to purchase 2,000 sample kits identical to the high quality IFOB kits distributed through the federal program.
The organisation is inviting Rotary clubs throughout Queensland to act as ambassadors to distribute free kits to under 45-year-olds and over 75-year-olds in their area. Bowel cancer is not just an old person’s disease. Under 50-year-olds make up 12 per cent of all bowel cancers.
Australians over 75 make up 41 per cent of positive diagnoses.
This invitation will also be extended to the Queensland Country Women’s Association and regional health centres.
Once the sample is created and the enclosed application form for analysis is completed, samples should be delivered to any of the 96 collection centres that Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology has located around Queensland. The sample is analysed free of charge.
For more information, visit bowelscanqueensland.org.au or email [email protected]