Interim Chancellor Paul Sarvela has been diagnosed with a rare but treatable cancer.

“The good news is that I have been given an excellent prognosis for a positive outcome, and I will be able to maintain an active, if somewhat modified schedule in my role as interim chancellor of SIU Carbondale throughout treatment over the next few months,” Sarvela wrote in an email Tuesday to colleagues.

Sarvela said physicians and staff at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine are treating him. He is in excellent hands, according to his email.

“I would like to use this occasion to emphasize the importance of staying on top of routine annual physicals, as my tumor would not have been detected and treated if I had not visited our family physician,” he wrote in the email. “I am deeply grateful for the counsel and care I have received over the last few weeks from outstanding local doctors and staff, many of whom hold SIU degrees.”