A SCOTTISH university and health board are breaking new ground in developing procedures to help predict the likelihood of developing cancer of the colon.
Aberdeen University and NHS Tayside are developing a new way to identify whether non-cancerous growths found in the colon, known as polyps, are likely to become cancerous tumours.
As well as helping to predict the probability that cancer will develop from polyps, this new technique will help clinicians make decisions about treatment for each patient.
Dr Janice Drew, Senior Research Fellow, of the University of Aberdeen's Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health led the research, published today, November 26, in the journal PLOS ONE.
In collaboration with the health board, Dr Drew developed the approach in response to a sizeable increase in individuals diagnosed with polyps since routine bowel screening began in Scotland in 2007.
Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cause of death from cancer. Dr Drew said: "Currently, polyp size and number are the only predictors for screened patients at risk of developing colon cancer in the future, but this is not a sensitive measure of future risk of cancer. Although visual assessment of the polyps and the degree of variation from normal colon tissue is made by trained medical staff, there is still a degree of inter-observer variation."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article