Recently, a new Canadian campaign has started to promote at home screening for colorectal cancer, aimed at timely diagnosing it and thus decreasing death rates, since this type of cancer is often asymptomatic.

Nevertheless, colorectal cancer is highly curable, with a 90 percent cure rate if diagnosed in its early stages.

Currently, the Canadian province of Ontario registers one of the highest rates of colorectal cancer worldwide, which is also the second deadliest cancer in the province.

Dr. Philip Branton, scientific director of the Canadian Health Research Institute, released a statement revealing that approximately 40 percent of the total number of 20,000 Ontarians who developed colorectal cancer annually were exposed to significantly increased death risk.

As for the United States, the National Cancer Institute has informed that an estimated 150,000 Americans developed this type of cancer each year, which took its annual death toll of about 50,000 people.

Now, the Ontario provincial government is advocating home fecal occult tests, which are used to detect blood in the stool, one of the symptoms of colorectal cancer. A program of the like in the United Kingdom resulted in reducing the number of both hospitalizations and deaths by colorectal cancer by 50 percent over a period of five years.

This type of cancer, the third most common one in the United States, entails symptoms such as changes in bowel habits, bright red or very dark blood in the stool, diarrhea or constipation, narrowed stools, abdominal discomfort, unexplained weight loss, exhaustion and vomiting, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

The at home test involves collecting a small stool sample on three different days, which is used to detect blood in the stool before it becomes visible to the eye. If a person tests positive, they afterwards need to undergo a colonoscopy, which checks for colon growths, polyps or cancer, since only 10 percent of people who test positive for fecal occult test actually develop cancer.

Usually, people over 50 are urged to undergo a colonoscopy twice a year.