Homes Under the Hammer and Ground Force star Tommy Walsh has shared a health update after he was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.
This most recent diagnosis marks the 67-year-old’s third brush with the disease, after he found two benign lumps in his chest 20 years earlier, and later “fully recovered” when doctors found he had throat cancer in 2022.
Walsh has, however, since confirmed that the cancer had returned, as he shared an update on his health.
“My cancer came back earlier this year….they found it again under the lung,” he told The Mirror.
“So I had to have this new treatment called SABR and what it is is radiotherapy, which targets it to an exact spot without damaging the organs around it. So they used that and it shrunk.”
Praising the new technology, Walsh shared: “It is now not anywhere else. It is going away. Because it is shrinking, it will shrink down to nothing and disappear. I will then just have to have annual checks. It has worked for me really well.”
The builder and TV personality, best known for hosting the BBC’s garden makeover show Ground Force from 1997 to 2005 alongside Alan Titchmarsh, shared news of his diagnosis with audience members at a charity event for the Swallows Head and Neck Cancer charity last November.
Walsh explained that doctors had found a “three centimetre tumour in the lung” and was scheduled for an emergency appointment for a CT scan the following day. He did not provide any further updates following the appointment.
However, the presenter confirmed that the cancer was, in fact, found to be “just outside the lung” in this new interview.
“They thought it was in the lung and then I would have been in trouble,” he said. “Surgery would have been serious where they cut you open and take a big lump of bone out of the rib and then they would have to put a piece of metal mesh in to stop the lung falling out of the hole.”
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Walsh – who joined Homes Under the Hammer in 2021, before he was replaced by Owain Wyn Evans earlier this year – has a family history of the disease. His sister reportedly underwent a lumpectomy to remove cancerous breast tissue when she was 31.
Walsh praised his medical treatment, as he added: “I was treated on the NHS. That is where I go. They have sorted it out and it is a great.
“I would always go to the NHS. They have looked after me throughout this whole cancer shenanigans so why would I want to go somewhere else.”
