Homes Under The Hammer's Tommy Walsh, 67, issues cancer update after starting new treatment
Homes Under the Hammer and former Garden Force celeb Tommy Walsh has shared how he's fighting his cancer head-on. The 67 year old detailed his experience with a new innovative radiation therapy he received from the NHS, aimed at targeting specific cancer cells. He revealed: "My cancer came back earlier this year....they found it again under the lung."
The legendary presenter announced in January that doctors were investigating a lump in his lung and later shared that he been given a lung cancer diagnosis. The news came over 20 years after he had two benign lumps removed from his chest, and his 2022 battle with throat cancer.
Speaking about his latest prognosis, Tommy said: "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. 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."
Tommy also expressed his gratitude for the cancer being discovered "just outside his lung", which meant the news from doctors was more positive than it could have been. He expanded: "They thought it was in the lung and then I would have been in trouble. 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."
The presenter, who worked on Ground Force with Charlie Dimmock and Alan Titchmarsh from 1997 to 2005, expressed relief about avoiding the alternative surgical procedure, adding: "So I did not want [it] but we had that as a backup. The SABR treatment has worked and I am healthy so I have not been in any pain.", reports the Mirror.
The TV host also said he would always choose to seek treatment on the NHS rather than seeking private healthcare. "I was treated on the NHS," he said. 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."
