Bowel cancer screenings could become much less painful thanks to the development of a soft robotic device, according to scientists.

Researchers at Imperial College London say they have created a new type of endoscope that reduces the discomfort usually associated with a colonoscopy.

The device is soft, flexible and capable of extending and curling on its own inside the body, and clinical trials are now under way to test its effectiveness.

Around 900,000 colonoscopies are performed every year in the UK, the majority of which are for screenings for bowel cancer.

In more than 75 per cent of cases patients suffer significant pain, according to Nisha Patel, a consultant gastroenterologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London, who is running clinical trials with the new device.

Researchers at Imperial College London say they have created a new type of endoscope that reduces the discomfort usually associated with a colonoscopy (Pictured is a normal endoscope)

Around 900,000 colonoscopies are performed every year in the UK, the majority of which are for screenings for bowel cancer (pictured is a file photo of a bowel cancer cell)

She said: ‘This affects uptake of further procedures and patient experience. There are reasons why people can be in pain. For example, if patients have had abdominal pelvic surgery and there is scarring inside, if they are older, or if they have certain diseases of the bowel.’

An endoscope is a long, thin tube with a camera at the end that is inserted into the body to check for certain diseases.

Ms Patel said compared to the robotic prototype, endoscopes currently used in clinical settings are relatively rigid.

‘You are essentially looking at a garden hosepipe versus an octopus limb,’ she said. ‘It [the robotic endoscope] is very soft, very pliable, and able to curl around corners.’

Along with a camera, the robotic endoscope also comes with a probe that can sample and analyse tissue as well as a small surgical laser, which can remove tumours, making it a ‘one-stop device’ to find and treat cancer at its early stages, according to the researchers.

Ms Patel added: ‘Potentially its use could be in primary care as a comfortable procedure to perform outside a hospital setting that is also safe and effective.’

The robotic endoscope is among five projects which have received £36.5million investment from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

A simple blood test that detects more than 50 types of cancer could ‘transform cancer care for ever’, the head of the NHS has said.

One million Health Service patients with no symptoms will be enrolled on a world-first study from next year in the hope of boosting survival rates.

Researchers expect the blood test to alert 10,000 people that they may have a tumour, allowing them to be referred for scans and further investigation. And they estimate four in ten of these – or 4,000 people – will be found to have the disease.

Identifying cancers early before they spread increases the odds of treatment being successful and slashes the risk of dying from it.

The Galleri test, developed by US company Grail, has already been successfully trialed in patients with symptoms and can tell doctors where in the body the tumour originated. Health leaders believe it could prove invaluable as a major screening tool.

A simple blood test that detects more than 50 types of cancer could ‘transform cancer care for ever’, NHS boss has said 

Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive (pictured), said ‘this test has the potential to transform cancer care forever’

Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, said: ‘Lives are saved when cancers are caught early, and this test has the potential to transform cancer care forever – especially for the types that often don’t show symptoms until a later stage when they can be much harder to treat.

‘This trial shows that the NHS is always striving to adopt and spread cutting-edge innovation so we can give the best possible care to our patients.’

The Galleri test looks for traces of abnormal DNA circulating in patients’ blood, which may be a sign they have cancer.

Dr Thomas Round, a GP and researcher at the King’s College London Cancer Prevention Trials Unit, told the NHS ConfedExpo conference in Manchester the potential of the test is ‘enormous’.

Trial recruits will give blood in clinics but he said it could be developed into a home-based test that people can perform themselves at their own convenience. If successful, it would make it easier for doctors to find a tumour, which is currently like looking for a ‘needle in a haystack’, Dr Round said.

He added: ‘The sky is the limit. Most GPs are overworked at the moment and it might help us. As a GP, I might have eight new cancers a year. But you’ve got to think about how many hundreds of consultations I might have that could be due to cancer.

‘And the majority of cancers don’t have screening programmes. Think about pancreatic cancer, where by the time people have symptoms such as weight loss, they often have stage four and have very poor survival.

‘So actually you’ve got to think about those cancers where we can have that earlier signal before symptoms or where symptoms are very vague.’

Researchers expect the blood test to alert 10,000 people that they may have a tumour, allowing them to be referred for scans and further investigation

The test is being piloted on 142,000 patients with no cancer symptoms and will be expanded to one million more aged 50 to 77 from April next year if initial results are promising.

The National Screening Committee will be involved in evaluating the success of the test, so it can be rolled out rapidly if proven to work.

Gillian Rosenberg, innovation lead on NHS England’s National Cancer Programme, said: ‘Of the one million tests we’re anticipating in this pilot we think the number of positive referrals will be about 5,000.

‘While we are screening a large number of people, we are confident this will not add an undue burden onto the currently stretched secondary care pathways.’

Its rollout would make the NHS the first healthcare system in the world to offer a universal cancer check – dubbed the ‘holy grail’ of cancer care.

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been admitted to San Raffaele hospital in Milan, two months after being diagnosed with leukaemia and a lung infection.

Berlusconi, 86, who is in a relationship with 33-year-old Forza Italia MP Marta Fascina, was taken to the hospital for medical checks, a source said. 

The billionaire media tycoon was discharged from hospital last month after treatment for a lung infection linked to a Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (CML).

Berlusconi’s health has markedly deteriorated in recent years, with open-heart surgery in 2016 and numerous hospital admissions since contracting Covid-19 three years ago.

He was admitted to intensive care in April in the cardiac unit of the San Raffaele hospital after suffering from breathing problems. 

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been admitted at San Raffaele hospital in Milan, four sources told Reuters today

Berlusconi, 86, is in a relationship with 33-year-old Forza Italia MP Marta Fascina

While there, Berlusconi, the leader of the Right-wing Forza Italia party, was diagnosed with a lung infection and CML – a rare blood cancer characterised by high numbers of white blood cells. 

Berlusconi has previously overcome prostate cancer, which he described as ‘a nightmare lasting months’.  

But it was his battle with Covid in 2020 which he described as the ‘most dangerous challenge’ of his life. 

The three-time prime minister of Italy, who has been embroiled in several scandals – most notably around his ‘bunga bunga’ parties – was admitted to hospital with a minor heart problem after fainting in 2006, and underwent heart surgery in a US hospital in January 2007.

The former AC Milan owner, who also had major heart surgery in 2016 to replace an aortic valve, has had a pacemaker for several years.

He was hospitalised again for a reported urinary tract infection in January 2022.  

Berlusconi, who won a seat in Italy’s Senate during general elections in September, has stirred controversy in recent months with his criticism of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, putting him at odds with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

The billionaire, whose Forza Italia party is part of the ruling government coalition, was accused – but acquitted this year – of paying young starlets and others for ‘silence and lies’ about his notoriously hedonistic soirees, which he has always insisted were elegant dinners. 

The verdict was the culmination of a legal battle which began in 2010 when Berlusconi, then prime minister, was accused of abusing his power to protect a young Moroccan nightclub dancer, Karima El-Mahroug. 

Berlusconi, who has five children, was temporarily banned from political office after a conviction for tax fraud in 2013, for which he served a community sentence.

But he returned to the political front lines and was re-elected as a senator last year. 

The media mogul, who first entered politics in 1994, does not currently have a role in government.