Larry King Says He Had Short Battle With Lung Cancer: ‘It Was Really Strange’ (Video)

Host discloses secret diagnosis

| September 13, 2017 @ 10:51 AM

Larry King disclosed a secret lung cancer diagnosis on Wednesday, explaining that doctors found a spot on a routine chest x-ray that turned out to be malignant.

“It was really strange,” King said in an interview on “Extra.” “Part of my checkup is the chest X-ray, and that is the protocol. I do it every year… it was always normal. Then the doctor says, ‘I see a little spot here. Let’s do a CAT scan, so they do a CAT scan, and they say, ‘Let’s do a PET scan’… I don’t think there are any other scans.”

The spot turned out to be stage 1 lung cancer, and King underwent surgery in July to have it removed. Within two weeks, he was back at work on “Larry King Now.”

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“I had no clue at all,” he said. “If I had not had the chest X-ray, it would have progressed.”

King encouraged viewers to get regular check-ups, saying that is what saved him from what could’ve been a much worse prognosis had it gone undetected. From now on, King will have to get a chest x-ray every six months to make sure he stays in the clear.

“I smoked for thirty years,” he said. “The day of the heart attack, I never smoked again, and I smoked three packs a day — I smoked in the shower … Thirty years later, I said to the doctor, ‘Is this connected with that?’ Absolutely.”

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