"I'm a living, walking example of the importance of early detection."
Katie Couric has been cancer-free for a little over a year now, but that doesn’t mean she’s done sharing her story. In a new interview with People, the talk show host opened up about being diagnosed with breast cancer last year and the importance of getting screened regularly.
"I'm a living, walking example of the importance of early detection and getting screened," Katie said at the American Ballet Theatre Fall Gala in New York on Tuesday. "I was very fortunate," she said of her prognosis. "My cancer was caught very, very early when it's most treatable, and if I can just be an advertisement for people to get screened, to get their mammography done, to talk to their doctors, and if they have dense breasts, to get additional screening."
Couric noted that while October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, she likes to advocate for getting screened all year round. "I've been writing a lot about this in my newsletter, which goes out to a million people. I'm trying to spread the word on social media and really every time I get a chance to talk about it I try to do that," she said, adding: "I try to use my platform in a really positive way."
Back in September 2022, Katie revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer after a mass was found during a mammogram and her biopsy came back as cancerous. “I felt sick and the room started to spin,” Couric wrote about learning of her diagnosis in a personal essay on her website. “I was in the middle of an open office, so I walked to a corner and spoke quietly, my mouth unable to keep up with the questions swirling in my head. ‘What does this mean? Will I need a mastectomy? Will I need chemo? What will the next weeks, months, even years look like?'”
Katie underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumor in July 2022. Pathology results showed that her cancer was at stage 1A, and was caught early enough that she was able to forgo chemotherapy.