King Charles Cancer Mystery

My comments on what may be happening at present.

King Charles Health

Please click the above link to read the source article. Although that article is from the New York Post—not exactly a bastion of honesty—the same reporting has been confirmed in other publications this morning. In short, it sounds like King Charles is sicker than we first believed. Let me explain a few things (as a pathologist who has spent 20 years diagnosing cancer):

At first, the report was that he had prostate cancer. This did not raise too many alarm bells because he is the right age for prostate cancer and it is usually a very slow growing tumor. I know people who were diagnosed in the early 2000s who still live a fulfilling life today. On the flip side, OJ Simpson recently died from prostate cancer, and of course I have seen my share of lethal prostate cancer cases. But somewhere along the line, it was confirmed that King Charles did not have prostate cancer and the cancer type was never revealed.

I think the reason we don’t know what kind of cancer King Charles has, is that as soon as it is known, every media outlet and social media page will begin speculating on exactly when he will die, using known survival rates of various cancers. And I completely respect the approach of withholding the information. We don’t have a right to someone else’s personal medical information.

It’s worth noting that the timeline from diagnosis to (presumed) death isn’t particularly helpful in determining cancer type, mainly because we don’t know how long a person may have waited while having symptoms but before getting checked. For instance, last year I diagnosed a colon cancer death at autopsy—the decedent did not have any reported history of it prior—-but based on the examination of the tumor, its size and location, and the areas it had metastasized to, it could be inferred that during life the person almost certainly had to have symptoms for at least 1-2 years before death. So, speculation is somewhat difficult if not pointless in the case of King Charles. It could either be a very fast growing cancer and he noticed the symptoms as soon as they started, or it could be a slow to moderate growth rate cancer in which he ignored the symptoms for a long period of time.

Ultimately, we may never know exactly what kind of cancer King Charles was diagnosed with.

But it’s worth taking the time to remind anyone reading this, to just keep in mind what is normal for your body and to be aware of any changes that arise. And most importantly, don’t wait to address any new symptoms (pain, an unusual nodule you feel, a change in a mole, fatigue, bleeding, unintended weight loss etc).

—DLW