A MAN who may owe his life to a home cancer test has welcomed a study which calls for widespread screening.

Research published yesterday said a one-off test could cut the risk of developing bowl cancer by more than a third.

Laurence Prestage, from Everton near Lymington, who owns a website designing business, is now urging people to think twice before refusing a test for bowel cancer.

He was about to throw away a bowel cancer test which he was sent in the post but thought better of it.

The 63-year-old said: “When I received the test kit, I thought ‘men don’t do tests’ and I put it to one side.

“Then I changed my mind but it still took me a few days before I did it.

“I got the results back and I was asked to do another one and when they didn’t like that, they asked me to come in for a chat with a consultant.

“It was a huge shock to me at the time.”

Mr Prestage added: “I think that they should scatter-gather the home test kits and then keep on sending them out every year to those who don’t do one. It’s getting the take-up rate to increase that is the problem.”

“My advice to anyone, men or women, is even if you feel perfectly well and you have no problems with using the toilet, you should still do the test. It will affect one in 20 people in the UK in their lifetime.

“It could well have saved my life and I am glad I didn’t find out. I know people in their 50s who are dying from bowel cancer, all for the sake of not taking the test.”

The study of over 170,000 men and women between the ages of 55 and 64 found that the test could also cut the death rate by 43 per-cent.

The findings were drawn from those patients who underwent a sigmoidoscopy, where a camera mounted on a thin, flexible tube is inserted around a third of the way into the bowel.

The result was published by The Lancet and is expected to save thousands of lives.