Waitemata District Health Board in Auckland is to run a $24 million pilot bowel cancer screening programme, which is likely to be rolled out nationally.
Health Minister Tony Ryall says Waitemata was chosen from among four proposals to run the four-year pilot.
He says the pilot programme is expected to begin next October, with about 130,000 people aged between 50 and 74 who live in the DHB area to be invited by their family doctor to participate.
Mr Ryall says bowel cancer is the second most common cancer in New Zealand, and the death rate is one of the highest in the developed world, at about 1,200 a year.
He says it is his expectation that national roll-out will follow the pilot but that will be decided at the end of the pilot.
