Scans for life

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
ROTARY Clubs from across the valley are teaming up to offer life-saving bowel scans.
Clubs have teamed up with pharmacies in Healesville, Yarra Glen, Wandin, Seville, Woori Yallock, Yarra Junction and Warburton to provide the $6 Bowelscan test kit and free pathology processing.
The members said that bowel cancer can kill, but this simple test saves lives.
Early detection of bowel cancer provides a 90 per cent chance of being cured, and the annual early detection program for over-40s has been run by Rotary Clubs for almost 25 years.
Healesville Rotary Bowelscan co-ordinator Graeme Chester said that 13 men and 15 women living in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs had life-saving procedures during the past five years following early detection by using a Bowelscan test kit.
“These people have praised our early bowel cancer detection program provided by Bowelscan,” he said.
“Going to the doctor can cost up to $40, but this is just $6 including the pathology results.
“We’ve got the highway covered.”
Purchasers just take the kit home and follow the clear instructions, and return it to the pharmacy as soon as possible.
Rotary then sends the test kit to the pathology laboratory for analysis and the results are mailed to the customer – positives immediately, and negatives in early July.
Mr Chester said the kits detect microscopic bleeding from the bowel and early detection is the key to beating the disease.
“We know that every year in Australia there are going to be 12,000 new cases of bowel cancer and 5000 deaths from bowel cancer,” he said.
“For your family’s sake, beat bowel cancer by early detection – waiting for symptoms to appear, is waiting too long.”