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Louise Thomas
Editor
Deidre Sanders, This Morning’s beloved agony aunt, has revealed her breast cancer has returned.
The 79-year-old presenter, who hosts the Dear Deidre segment on the breakfast programme, was first diagnosed with the disease in 2022 and underwent surgery to remove the cancerous cells from her right breast.
At the time, she told This Morning viewers that she had not gone for a mammogram for nearly 10 years and encouraged them to get their breasts checked regularly.
On Tuesday (1 October), Sanders told viewers that the cancer has returned and she will be receiving surgery to remove a tumour followed by treatment.
She said: "Unfortunately, I’ve got to have a lumpectomy followed by radiotherapy. I feel lucky, it’s been caught early and the treatment is happening very rapidly.
“This is all on the NHS so I think I am so lucky. It could be so much worse. To be honest, the symptoms I had the first time were a coincidence and not actually a symptom of the cancer as it turns out,” she said.
“An efficient GP put me on the cancer pathway and I got a very rapid check and treatment. I’ve felt well, I haven’t felt tired or run down. I couldn’t feel anything, it’s very tiny so there’s nothing to feel. It’s purely down to the mammogram which showed it up. I had an ultrasound and a biopsy and it revealed it was cancer.”
The agony aunt admitted she was “shocked” by the diagnosis but she wasn’t currently feeling unwell.
She reminded women that the call for mammograms stops when they turn 70 – but they can request them via the NHS if they are concerned.
“I was shocked. I felt fine. I was so taken aback, I wasn’t expecting it at all", she said, before urging other women: ‘My big point about this is that on the NHS system, I’m not criticising it, the call for mammograms stop when you are 70,’” said Sanders.
The presenter, who joined the programme in 2016, also revealed she was among thousands of women who did not receive an invite for a mammogram when they turned 70 due to “error”.
“I happened to be in a cohort of women who got missed and we didn’t get called. I hadn’t had a mammogram since I was 67, so ten years had gone by. I didn’t give it a thought. I didn’t know anything about it.”
“But what I do now know is that when you’re over 70, you can request a mammogram on the NHS and you should get one every year. Please, if you’re a woman over 70, request your mammogram. The reason I’ve had an easy time this time and last time is because it was caught so early.”
