Hong Kong urged to start colon cancer tests from the age of 50
Plans to invite only 61- to 70-year-olds to new screening scheme leave out health data that can be useful in policymaking, WHO specialist says
An upcoming citywide screening programme for colorectal cancer should cover 50- to 74-year-olds for the purpose of research that can aid policymaking and fight the disease, a World Health Organisation specialist has urged.
Expanding the recommended screening beyond the government's target age group of 61 to 70 would allow it to get a good grasp of local trends in colorectal cancer, Dr Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan said.
The disease is the city's second most common cancer. Health authorities aim to begin a three-year pilot screening programme by the end of this year, after the Food and Health Bureau unveiled the plan in December.
Sankaranarayanan, a special adviser on cancer control for the French-based International Agency for Research on Cancer under the WHO, believed that involving different age groups at the pilot stage would help the government formulate better policies against the disease.
"You get much wider information," he told the South China Morning Post while in town last month. He also reiterated the WHO's warning to stay away from alcohol, which had been found to cause cancers of the liver, breast and colorectum.
In 2012, colorectal cancer made up 16.4 per cent of all new cancer cases, data from the Hospital Authority's Cancer Registry showed. And most of those new colorectal cancer patients - 3,150 out of a total of 4,563 - were between 50 and 75 years old.
The government-appointed Cancer Coordinating Committee had proposed screening for that age group.