Govt to roll out bowel-cancer screening programme

The Government has announced the roll-out of a screening programme to detect one of the country's biggest cancer killers.

Bowel cancer is the second most common fatal cancer among men and women.

The screening programme will go live in 2012 and will target 60- to 69-year-olds.

CEO of the National Cancer Screening Service Tony O'Brien said the screening would have a big impact, and would, he hoped, allow medical teams to intervene when they found pre-cancerous material.