More than a third of people with abnormal bowel cancer screening results avoid later screening

Almost 40% of people who have abnormal results from bowel cancer screening and are referred for further investigations do not attend follow-up screening two years later, a study of the national screening programme in England has warned.

Researchers followed up participants in the NHS bowel cancer screening programme,1 which offers faecal occult blood testing to people aged 60-74 on three occasions, each two years apart. …