WASHINGTON, DC (WSAZ) – WV Senator Robert C. Byrd announced today more than $1.346 million in federal funding for the Marshall University Southern West Virginia Rural Preventive Medicine & “Virtual Colonoscopy” Outreach Project.

According to a press release, the federal funding comes from the Department of Health and Human Services and is the result of Byrd’s efforts as the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The funding will allow Marshall University’s Center for Rural Health to continue deploying two preventive mobile medical units in southern West Virginia. The units are used to conduct extensive health promotion, disease prevention, and cancer screening programs with a special focus on colorectal cancer.

Particular emphasis will be placed on identifying those who by virtue of age, family history or other factors may be susceptible or at-risk for chronic disease and colorectal cancer.

The Center will also develop the technological and professional skills necessary to establish a regional “Virtual Colonoscopy” program to deploy this rapidly advancing “gold standard” of cancer screening and care throughout the region. The Center will collaborate with the professional medical staff of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in these endeavors.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the United States. The death rate from colon cancer in the United States is about 18 per 100,000. In southern West Virginia the death rate is almost triple the national average at 52 per 100,000.