In a video released by Kensington Palace, Kate Middleton revealed why she has been out of the public eye for months: she was diagnosed with cancer and has been receiving preventative chemotherapy. She did not say what type of cancer she has or the stage of her disease, but she began receiving preventative chemotherapy in late February, according to a statement from Kensington Palace.
“In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the khbrknews, it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous,” the Princess of Wales said in the video. “The surgery was successful. However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present.”
“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment.”
What is preventative chemotherapy?
Doctors say “preventative chemotherapy” can refer to a wide variety of medicines for many different types of cancer. “It’s not a medical term, but I think we all agree that she is referring to adjuvant chemotherapy,” says Dr. Katherine Van Loon, professor of medicine and a gastrointestinal oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco (who has no personal knowledge of the Princess of Wales’ case). This treatment usually involves the same chemotherapy drugs that people receive to treat active or advanced cancer, she explains. Adjuvant chemotherapy is meant to kill any remaining, microscopic cancer cells a surgeon could not see and may have missed, and to destroy any cells that may have escaped and spread to other parts of the body.
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Depending on the type of cancer, studies have shown that giving “anywhere from three to six months of chemotherapy after surgery can significantly reduce the risk of cancer coming back,” says Dr. Jeremy Jones, interim chair of the division of hematology and oncology at the Mayo Clinic, who also has no personal knowledge of Kate’s case….
