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CASE NOTES
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Dr Mark Porter gives listeners the low-down on what the medical profession does and doesn't know. Each week an expert in the studio tackles a particular topic and there are reports from around the UK on the health of the nation - and the NHS.
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Contact Case Notes |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"I spend half my week practising medicine and the other half writing and talking about it as a GP in Gloucestershire. Working on Case Notes has been a boon for both me and my patients. One of the principal aims of the programme is to keep our listeners up-to-date with the latest developments in healthcare, and to accomplish that I get to interview a wide range of specialists at the cutting edge of medicine. A rare privilege that ensures our listeners aren't the only ones to learn something new."
Mark Porter
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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 Full programme transcript >>
The Bowel
This episode of Case Notes is all aboutÌýthe bowel - one of the biggest organs in the body, and one that's particularly prone to problems.
At least a third of the adult population in the UK lives with some form of ongoing bowel troubleÌýfrom mouth ulcers to piles.Ìý Cancer of the bowel kills 16,000 people a year in the UK.
Discussing the bowel and bowel problems with Dr Mark Porter is Dr Anton Emmanuel,ÌýConsultant Gastroenterologist and Senior Lecturer in Neurogastroenterology at University College Hospital, London.
Cancer of the Bowel
Cancer of the bowel is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK.
Although there is 90% cure rate if caught in time, fewer than 1 in 10 cancers are caught early making treatment more complicated and reducing the survival rate to well below 50%.Ìý
It's estimatedÌýthat a bowel cancer screening programme - based on a simple test looking for blood in the stool samples of people aged between 60 and 70 - could save around 1500 lives a year.
The National Bowel Cancer Screening ProgrammeÌýwas due to start this April but has been postponed until later in the year.
However, the Sussex-based Mary How Trust for Cancer Prevention are ahead of the game and have been offering a similar service for years. In 2005 they screened 1200 people - for free.
Barbara Myers reports.
Crohn's Disease and UlcerativeÌýColitis
Around 150,000 people in the UK have Crohn's diseaseÌýor ulcerative colitis. The symptoms are very similar and include pain, weight loss and bloody diarrhoea. Both can be very serious and require drastic intervention - including surgical removal of large sections of inflamed and ulcerated bowel.
There is growing interest in the theory that bacteria further down the bowel can cause inflammation in the cells lining the walls which in turn could predispose to, or aggravate, bowel cancer and inflammatory conditions.
Jonathan Rhodes, Professor of Medicine at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, tells Mark how these conditions could be eased using treatments aimed at protecting the bowel wall.
Professor Rhodes thinks that soluble fibre from plantains could be the answer. |
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RELATED LINKS
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Health: Bowel Cancer
The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is not responsible for the content of external websites
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