Hello and thank you for you post,

I am sorry to hear that your late father had bowel cancer and that you are worried that you could also get it.

When cancer is in the family, people often assume that this greatly increases their risk of developing it, but this isn't always true. Although the genes we inherit may influence our risk, other things do as well. 

Bowel cancer risks and causes  are explained on our website.  You will see that a family history can increase the risk of bowel cancer but not necessarily by very much. This can depend on how close the affected relatives were and how young they were when they developed the cancer.

We all carry some degree of ‘population' risk. In the UK, routine bowel screening starts from 60 for most of us.

The first step is to find out if your bowel cancer risk is enough above average to justify screening. Your GP can help you to do this. You need to find out if anyone else on either side of your family has a history of bowel or other cancers and if so, how old there were when they developed it. Depending on the family history your GP can refer you on to a bowel cancer genetic team for a risk assessment or tell you that your risk is much the same as average.

Please do get back to us if you have any more questions or give us a call us on 0808 800 4040. We are here from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Take care,

Caroline