Rocky IV star Dolph Lundgren has revealed he is “finally cancer free” almost nine years after he was diagnosed with the disease.
In a video shared on Instagram from a hospital bed in Los Angeles, Lundgren, 67, said he was undergoing a medical procedure to “get rid of that last dead tumour”.
The actor revealed his cancer diagnosis in May 2023, saying that doctors first found a cancerous tumour in his kidney in 2015.
“About to go in and get rid of that last dead tumour. Since there are no cancer cells in my body anymore, then I guess I’ll be cancer-free, so I’m looking forward to this procedure. It’s been a rough ride and really taught me how to live in the moment and enjoy every moment of life. It’s the only way to go,” he said in his video.
He said the procedure he was undergoing was a lung ablation, a “minimally invasive procedure that destroys tumor tissue by either heat or cooling mechanisms”, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In the caption underneath the video, he wrote: “Health update – finally cancer free with gratefulness and excitement for a bright future. Thanks for all your support always.”
Later the actor shared an update on his Instagram story, writing: “Thank you for all of your wonderful messages and supportive comments,” according to Fox News. “It’s gonna take a little more to break me,” he added, referencing his dialogue in Rocky IV when he tells Sylvester Stallone: “I must break you.”
In the first five years after his 2015 cancer diagnosis, Lundgren said on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, “things were fine”.
“I did scans every six months, then every year.”
In 2020, he started suffering from acid reflux and went in for an MRI. “They found that there were a few more tumours around the area,” he said, gesturing towards his abdominal region.
After another surgery to remove six tumours, he said doctors found another in his liver. “At that point, it started to hit me that this is kind of something serious.”
He said doctors told him at the time he had “two to three years”, but he could tell “in his voice that he probably thought it was less”.
Lundgren shared that he shot for Expendables 4 and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom while undergoing treatment with another doctor who reevaluated his cancer and prescribed him medications to shrink the tumours.
“I had signed on to Expendables 4 and the sequel to Aquaman, with both pictures shooting in London in the fall of 2021,” he said. “They had a really good guy there who was put in charge of my care.”
