Maria Menounos has revealed that her tumour “doubled in size” after her doctors initially overlooked her first signs of cancer.
The 45-year-old journalist, who was diagnosed with stage 2 pancreatic cancer in January, reflected on her early symptoms in a new episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. According to Menounos, when she went to the hospital in November 2022 due to “severe abdominal pain,” her doctors told her that “everything was fine”.
“I had severe diarrhoea for a month and a half,” she explained. “I did all the stool tests, they came back negative, nothing was bad. I went and got a CAT scan, they said: ‘You’re fine.’”
She also said that, when she returned to her doctors when her pain continued, they once again told her that they’d “done all the tests”. At that point, Menounos said that she was encouraged to get an MRI done in January, which is how she discovered that she had a tumour in her pancreas.
The One Tree Hill star recalled how she realised that the tumour had significantly grown in a few months when comparing her CAT scan and MRI.
“When they found the tumour in the MRI, I said: ‘Can we go back and get the records and look at the November scan? I bet it was there.’ And it was,” she explained. “At that point it was two centimetres and by the time they had found it was almost four centimetres, it had doubled in size in two months.”
When host Amanda Hirsch asked why the tumour was missed in the November 2022 scan, Menounos said that she’s “still getting to the bottom of that” and is “just healing” from the experience. She went on to explain how she’s learned the differences between the two types of scans.
“Different scans have the ability to see different things better,” she said. “For this, an MRI was what’s really going to see it, for other things CAT scans are better, for others things an ultrasound’s better. It’s a really complicated process to figure out which is the right thing to do.”
Menounos noted that her radiologist went back to her November scans and was able to see the tumour, before he did an addendum, which is when additional information is added to a patient’s medical report. According to Menounos, the radiologist then said: “Yes, now with the knowledge it was there, we’re able to see [the tumour] is there.”
According to the American Cancer Society, the most common tests to detect pancreatic cancer in its early stages are a CT scan, MRI, or an ultrasound. There are differences between the three tests, as an MRI “uses radio waves and strong magnets instead of x-rays to make detailed images of parts of your body,” while CT scans “makes detailed cross-sectional images of your body”. Ultrasounds “use sound waves to create images of organs such as the pancreas”, with an abdominal ultrasound and an endoscopic ultrasound being the most common ultrasound tests done to detect pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer is often referred to as the “silent killer” due to its hard-to-spot symptoms that can be mistaken for other conditions. Some symptoms of pancreatic cancer that can go overlooked include appetite loss, unexplained weight loss, stomach or back pain, and indigestion.
The condition is also the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States and accounts for about seven per cent of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. According to the Mayo Clinic, pancreatic cancer can go undetected at its early stages because “it often doesn’t cause symptoms until after it has spread to other organs”.
Menounos first revealed that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May of this year. During an interview with People, she recalled how she underwent surgery to remove the 3.9-centimetre mass on her pancreas.
She also revealed that her first symptoms began in June 2022, when she was experiencing severe leg cramps. “I’d scream out loud, I was inconsolable,” she said. After being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in June, she had a CT scan, also known as a CAT scan, and an MRI, which she said helped her catch her cancer early.
“I need people to know there are places they can go to catch things early,” she said. “You can’t let fear get in the way. I had that moment where I thought I was a goner – but I’m okay because I caught this early enough.”
During her appearance on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, she also said that she was “just f***ing gutted” when she received her pancreatic cancer diagnosis, as she and her husband, Keven Undergaro, were expecting a child via surrogate. In April, the couple revealed that they were having a baby girl.
“I was just guttural crying and I was like I can’t believe God just blessed me with a baby, I’m gonna have a baby,” the former E! News reporter said about learning of her diagnosis. “We were two months along and I’m like I can’t believe I’m finally going to have a baby and I’m not going to get to meet her.”
