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Alice Roberts examines how scientists in Wales are at the centre of health research.

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A Healthy Future: Bowel cancer research in Wales

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

26/06/2018

Bowel cancer research in Wales

BBC Radio Wales - A Healthy Future, Bowel cancer research in Wales

Alice Roberts looks at how scientists in Wales are at the centre of health care research.

Academic and broadcaster Alice Roberts examines how scientists in Wales are at the centre of health research. Here she looks at work to develop a blood test for bowel cancer.

As the NHS marks 70 years of service, academic and broadcaster Alice Roberts looks to the future and finds out how Wales is at the forefront of research into health care. 

Over four programmes Alice hears about developments to deal with conditions including heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's. 

In this programme, Alice's focus is bowel cancer, one of the biggest killers of people who develop cancer in Wales. It's the third most-common cancer worldwide and 41,000 cases are diagnosed in the UK every year. Early diagnosis is hampered by the lack of "red flag" symptoms and patients are often not diagnosed until their chances of survival are greatly reduced.

Here Alice meets scientists in Wales who have developed a blood test which could mean bowel cancer is diagnosed much earlier. If trials are successful, it could mean an end for patients being asked to collect their own samples and send them off for examination - a process which is believed to discourage many people from getting tested in the first place. It could also reduce the need for the rather invasive procedure known as a colonoscopy. 

Alice meets some of the patients who have been taking part in the trials, finds out how things are being monitored in the lab and gets the latest on how well the research is progressing. 

A MIM Production for BBC Radio Wales.

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