CNN’s Amanpour shares health update, urges women to ‘pay attention’ to ovarian cancer symptoms

Veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour said she is about to undergo her final chemotherapy session months after revealing her ovarian cancer diagnosis and called on women to “pay attention to their bodies.”

Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in honor of September’s Ovarian Cancer Awareness month that her final chemo session was scheduled for Thursday following 18 weeks of treatment. 

The journalist told host Robin Roberts, who herself underwent surgery and treatment after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, that the prolonged treatment process “grueling, fatiguing, tiring and emotionally wearing,” as well as physically exhausting. 

Amanpour first shared news of her diagnosis in June, telling her show’s viewers that she had been absent for four weeks due to her condition. 

“I’ve had successful major surgery to remove it and I’m now undergoing several months of chemotherapy for the very best possible long term prognosis,” she said at the time. 

In the interview aired Thursday, Amanpour told Roberts, “I would like to tell all the women and all the viewers out there that I have been so lucky,” in terms of access to quality treatment. 

The journalist explained that “it was early detection on my part and on my doctor’s part” that allowed her to receive a “very good prognosis.” 

“I would not be swayed when I felt a pain that was unusual and I pursued it until the very end of getting my first ultrasound, which is the benchmark for then having a baseline to know whether you’ve caught it early in time and therefore ‘cure’ it, or not,” she explained. 

She went on to say that ovarian cancer “is very difficult to detect, and that’s what I want women to understand.”

“I want women to understand they must pay attention to their bodies,” Amanpour said. “Whatever feels abnormal to them in terms of what they know to be their body’s normal state, they need to pursue it.”

In the U.S., roughly 1 in 78 women are at risk of getting ovarian cancer during their lifetime, with the chance of dying from ovarian cancer approximately 1 in 108, according to the American Cancer Society. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that treatment is most effective when ovarian cancer is found in its early stages. 

The CDC’s list of potential signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer include pain or pressure in the pelvic area, abdominal or back pain and frequent urination.