Bowel cancer is a big problem, causing more than 16,000 deaths per year in the UK. Many bowel cancers develop from polyps – small growths of the bowel lining that become cancerous over time as their cycle of growth and reproduction becomes more and more abnormal. Detecting and removing polyps is therefore the best strategy we have now for preventing bowel cancer. Polyps can be detected in a few ways, but the best way is colonoscopy (a large bowel camera test), which people often have because they go to their GP with bowel symptoms (such as blood in the poo or a persistent change in the consistency or frequency of their poo), or because they are taking part in the NHS bowel cancer screening programme. Many things have been implemented to improve the ability to detect polyps during a colonoscopy, but these nearly all focus on making more of the bowel lining more visible to the camera.