A leading Labour MP has revealed that he is having treatment after skin cancer was discovered in his lung.
Sir Chris Bryant told Sky News he has been having immunotherapy for the past three months after a routine scan detected a melanoma in his right lung in January.
The 62-year-old had surgery where doctors collapsed his lung so a robot could cut out the melanoma – with his lung then re-inflated.
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Five years ago, Sir Chris had a melanoma cut out of his head after being given a 40% chance of living a year, so has scans every six months.
The shadow creative industries minister told Sky News’s Kay Burley: “I had the results of my last scan which said that it wasn’t clear this time.
“They’d found something in my lung, which they thought was probably a melanoma, not lung cancer, skin cancer in my lung, which would obviously be very serious.
“That’s stage four metastatic cancer. And so very frightening.”
Sir Chris added that he wanted to come on Sky News to warn about the risks of being out in the sun.
“Skin cancer really does kill,” he said.
“And yesterday, lots of people would have been out in the sun. Enjoying the fact that they could sunbathe and all the rest of it.
“But the truth is that all of this stuff happened to my head and the skin cancer in my lung, all of that is in the end because of sun damage.
“So people can do things, cover up. If you’ve got a mole and you’re in doubt, get it checked out.
“Really, really important. We can save lives.”
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The Rhondda MP said if he had not gone for his last scan he most likely would have been going to the doctor in a year or 18 months with a “really bad chest”.
“It would have been a death sentence. Good news is they’ve cut it out,” he said.
“There’s no more cancer at the moment. I’ve had a scan. There’s nothing in that.
“And I’m on immunotherapy and immunotherapies.”
On social media, Sir Chris later said the treatment was “tough” – but he has “every hope of being completely cancer-free for the rest of my life”.
