If you are a Nova Scotia resident over the age of 50, chances are you’ve received a colon cancer home screening kit in the mail.

“The provincial program looks at all of those who are registered in MSI between the age of 50 and 74 and we send them a kit in the mail every two years,” says Dr. Bernard Badley, the medical director of the Nova Scotia Colon Cancer Prevention Program.

Dr. Badley says the kits are returned by mail and the enclosed stool sample is tested for traces of blood.

“Small polyps as they get larger tend to bleed a little bit, not much, not enough to see any blood in the stool, but enough,” says Dr. Badley. “The test is one to find those minute amounts of hidden blood in the stool in people who have no symptoms.”

Dr. Badley says colon cancer is preventable. It doesn’t start life as a cancer, but as a growth, or polyp, inside the colon.

“So far in the province, we’ve detected between 7,000 and 8,000 individuals with polyps that are potentially pre-cancerous,” Dr. Badley tells CTV News.

“The goal is to intervene early when it’s a small polyp before it gets a chance to become a cancer so it can be treated with a colonoscope,” says surgeon Dr. Alex Mitchell. “You can insert a scope in through the colon and remove it without any anesthetic, without a big surgery and without the patient at any risk of developing malignancy which can spread and ultimately end their life.”

While not all polyps develop into cancer, Dr. Mitchell says identifying them early can be lifesaving.

“In this province, 25 to 30 per cent of patients present with stage four disease, so their first presentation with colorectal cancer, the first time they turn up with symptoms, it’s too late,” says Dr. Mitchell.

It takes about 10 to 12 years for a polyp to become cancerous. For this reason, the test is sent out every two years.

“The face you have a negative test doesn’t mean you don’t have a tiny little polyp,” says Dr. Badley. “It means you have a tiny little polyp that isn’t big enough, isn’t old enough to start bleeding, but two years from now, perhaps four years from now, that polyp will have grown to the size that we can detect it.”

Dr. Badley advises everybody to complete the test each time it’s sent out.