Will Reeve, the 34-year-old Good Morning America host and ABC News correspondent, revealed Tuesday that he spent much of this year quietly battling testicular cancer, undergoing two surgeries and chemotherapy before ringing a treatment-completion bell in July. Reeve said the cancer began with a lump he noticed on his left testicle, and it is now, in his words, in the rearview mirror.
According to WBAL NewsRadio, Reeve was diagnosed with embryonal carcinoma, an aggressive form of testicular cancer, in April. He has said that his wife, Amanda, was the one who encouraged him to get evaluated by a doctor after he noticed the lump, and a subsequent ultrasound revealed a mass in his testicle. Reeve underwent surgery to remove the testicle in May, and that procedure confirmed the cancer diagnosis.
A Six-Hour Surgery and a Cancerous Finding
Pathology testing after the May operation found that 95% of the removed tumor consisted of embryonal carcinoma. Reeve underwent a second surgery in June, a six-hour retroperitoneal lymph node dissection to remove dozens of abdominal lymph nodes, which turned out to be cancerous. Johns Hopkins Medicine describes retroperitoneal lymph node dissection as a specialized procedure used to remove abdominal lymph nodes surrounding the aorta and inferior vena cava, the primary site where testicular cancer tends to spread, and the surgery is used both to evaluate how far disease has traveled and to prevent local recurrence.
Reeve's specific cell type is notably rare even within an already uncommon cancer. The Cleveland Clinic notes that pure embryonal carcinoma accounts for only 2% to 5% of all testicular cancers, though the aggressive cell type shows up in roughly 40% to 85% of mixed germ cell testicular tumors, and non-seminomatous tumors like his tend to grow faster and carry a higher risk of early metastasis than seminomas.
Nine-Hour Days at the Hospital That Treated His Mother
After the second surgery, Reeve underwent two rounds of chemotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, with treatment days stretching to nine hours: two hours of actual chemotherapy infusion paired with seven hours of a scalp-cooling technique called cold capping. Cold capping can help prevent hair loss.
In his September 29 announcement on Good Morning America, Reeve pointed to an emotional parallel: he received chemotherapy at the very same Manhattan hospital where his mother, Dana Reeve, was treated 20 years earlier, according to HELLO! Magazine. Dana Reeve died from lung cancer in March 2006 at age 44, and Will was 13 years old at the time. His father, Christopher Reeve, died in 2004. Will Reeve and his siblings work alongside the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which focuses on spinal cord injury research and quality-of-life advocacy. He is an ABC News correspondent.
Cancer-Free, With Ongoing Monitoring Ahead
Reeve completed his cancer treatment in July and rang the treatment-completion bell that month. A follow-up medical evaluation on September 8 confirmed that he is cancer-free, though per TAPinto's reporting he will continue routine blood tests and imaging scans multiple times a year for ongoing monitoring, since testicular cancer survivors require sustained surveillance to catch any potential recurrence early.
Reeve said testicular cancer can happen to anyone, and that people diagnosed with it usually end up okay, adding that he hopes his disclosure raises awareness for the disease.
