Maria Menounos has spoken out about her cancer diagnosis and said that the tumour has almost doubled in size in the time between an initial scan and getting diagnosed.
The presenter, 45, recently announced that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January and she had surgery the following month to remove a tumour.
The former E! News host's treatment is said to have also included removing part of her pancreas and it's hoped she won't need chemotherapy or additional treatment.
Maria discussed her diagnosis on a podcast recently, with her having said that the tumour almost doubled in size between an initial scan and her getting diagnosed.
Maria spoke about her experience with Amanda Hirsch on the latter's Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, appearing on the latest episode, which was released this week.
The guest said that she had been experiencing abdominal pain in the months prior to her diagnosis and recalled having a CAT scan in November last year because of that.
Maria said she was told "everything was fine" and that doctors weren't too concerned when the pain persisted, with the diagnosis said to have come weeks later.
The presenter said the tumour was discovered when she had a private full-body MRI scan, after being approached by a company with the opportunity to undergo one.
Maria said she was encouraged to visit the hospital after the scan, where she was diagnosed. She said a radiologist went back and found the tumour on the previous scan.
She said on the podcast: "When they found the tumor 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."
"At that point it was two centimetres and then by the time they had found it was almost four centimetres, it had doubled in size in two months," she further commented.
Maria said she's "still getting to the bottom" of how the tumour was missed, adding: "What I'm learning is that different scans have the ability to see different things better.
"So for this, an MRI was what's really gonna see it, for other things a CAT scan's better and for others things an ultrasound's better. It's a really complicated process."
Discussing her experience prior to the diagnosis, she said: "I went to the hospital that November in severe abdominal pain. Got a CAT scan. 'Everything was fine,'" they said.
"I had severe pain again and they're like 'well we scanned you and you're blood's fine'. [...] It was only when I went to that facility that they found that tumour on my pancreas."
Maria - who hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 - said her diagnosis was not long after discovering that her and husband Keven Undergaro were expecting a baby via surrogate.
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