Family medicine practice receives grant to fight cancer

Listen to this article

AnMed Health Williamston Family Medicine received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help increase colorectal cancer screening rates. The $60,000 grant will be spread over five years, according to a news release.

AnMed Health offers various screening tests but the tests are often underutilized by patients, according to a news release. AnMed Health Williamston Family Medicine plans to collaborate with the University of South Carolina’s Colorectal Cancer Prevention Network to identify opportunities to improve screening in the community.

“Improving colorectal cancer screening has been a top priority of the physicians at AnMed Health Williamston Family Medicine,” Dr. Matthew Roehrs, a provider at the practice, said in the news release.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States. The direct cost of treating it is estimated at $17 billion annually, and approximately 9.8 million workdays are lost annually due to hospitalization, the release said.

In some regions of South Carolina, as many as 90% of people who should be screened are not. Low screening rates have made colorectal cancer the second leading cause of cancer death in the state, affecting Black and Latino communities the most, the release said.