A television station in the United Kingdom partnered with Cancer Research UK to air a live colonoscopy on public television as it takes place at Cardiff and Vale University hospital, the Independent reports.
Here's what you should know.
1. Cancer Research UK hopes the television event will increase awareness of bowel cancer.
“We want viewers to join us to experience the unique insight of seeing live inside the human body, and witness a procedure that can actually prevent cancer from developing,” Ed Aspel, Cancer Research UK’s director of marketing, said to the Independent.
2. Sunil Dolwani, MD, will operate on a patient who will have two bowel polyps removed.
3. The patient agreed to the broadcast to help show that "it was a simple procedure, not something to be frightened of." Physicians diagnosed the patient's brother with bowel cancer in 2010, and the patient has since made regular screenings routine.