VATICAN CITY (Reuters Health) - Pope John Paul helped launch a campaign on Saturday aiming to prevent millions of people from dying of cancers of the stomach and gut.

Speaking to the organisers of the first global campaign against digestive cancers during an audience at the Vatican, the Pope gave his blessing to their endeavour.

"His Holy Father underlined the importance not only of prevention, but also the need to train doctors to defeat one of the most serious illnesses to afflict mankind," Alberto Montori, professor of surgery at Rome University, said.

In July 1992, when the Pope was 72, doctors removed a tumour the size of an orange from his intestines. The tumour was caught as it was beginning to turn malignant.

The International Digestive Cancer Alliance said such cancers cause the highest number of cancer deaths each year.

"This year there will be approximately 3 million new cases of digestive cancers globally, with 2.2 million deaths," the organisation said in a statement.

Campaign chairman Dr. Sidney Winawer, professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College in the United States, said the first target was to halve the 500,000 deaths caused each year by colorectal cancer by 2010.

The current annual death toll for the disease is 60,000 in the United States, 32,000 in Germany, 18,000 in Britain, 17,000 in France and 11,000 in Spain.

"Screening for colorectal cancer and polyps should be offered to all men and women starting at age 50," Winawer said, adding that trials show screening significantly reduces mortality. The cost in terms of life-years saved, he said, is similar to mammography.

Meinhard Classen, professor of medicine at Hamburg and Frankfurt Universities, said that if faecal occult blood tests are used for colon cancer screening, they should be repeated annually as the detection rate is only about 30%. This test checks for hidden blood in the stool, which can signal cancer.

Colonoscopy, in which a flexible lighted tube is used to check the entire colon, is more cost effective, he added, as it detects more than 90% of cases and does not need to be done so frequently.

The campaigners say many people are unaware screening can detect polyps before cancer develops and that efforts to tackle cancers of the gut suffer because people are embarrassed to talk about them.

American actress Barbara Barrie, author of the book "Don't Die of Embarrassment," attended the campaign launch.

"Seven years ago I was diagnosed with rectal cancer, having ignored symptoms for many years," she said.

British TV presenter and former bowel cancer patient Lynn Faulds Woods said: "I was thrilled when I got Prince Charles to talk about bottoms and bowels on TV.

"Now to get the Pope to come out and support a campaign for a disease that no one wants to talk about is absolutely fantastic."

The campaign launch was sponsored by Organisation Mondiale de Gasto-Enterologie, Organisation Mondiale d'Endoscopie Digestive and the United European Gastroenterology Federation.

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