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Maria Menounos, whose went through surgery in 2017 to remove a meningioma and in 2023 to remove a neuroendocrine cacner of her pancreas,hosts a podcast called the Heal Squad. (Photo: Lemieux Creative LLC 2021)<\/p>\n
Lemieux Creative LLC 2021<\/p>\n
You may not care if the early bird gets the worm, if you happen to not like worms. But early detection of cancer will get you something you should definitely want: much higher chances of successful treatment. That\u2019s what happened to Emmy Award-winning TV host, author and podcaster Maria Menounos when the neuroendocrine cancer that she had in her pancreas was detected before it could spread any further. You could say that harrowing experience has pan-created motivation for Menounos to team up with Exact Sciences<\/a>\u2014the makers of a multi-cancer screening blood test called Cancerguard<\/a>\u2014 to advocate for more cancer screening. I recently talked to Menounous, who\u2019s been a host of Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, and E! News and a reporter for The Today Show, about all this and more. <\/p>\n Menounos Had A Meningioma Removed In 2017<\/p>\n Part of the more is that Menounos has now seen cancer from different perspectives. In 2016, her mother, Litsa Menounos, was diagnosed with a malignant and very difficult to treat type of brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme, which originates from the glial cells of the brain. As she cared for her mother going through radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Menounos started experiencing brain-ish symptoms herself: intense ear pain, headaches, dizziness and slurred speech. Her doctor ordered an MRI of the brain, but Menounos, given her busy TV schedule including serving as the co-anchor of E! News, postponed getting it. But that led to even more EEEE! news\u2014she began having blurry vision. That prompted her to clearly see the need to get the MRI, which she finally did at 10:30 pm on a Friday at UCLA Medical Center, because what else are you going to do on a Friday night. <\/p>\n The MRI revealed a meningioma about the size of a golf-ball. So both she and her mother had brain tumors, which was kind of WTF coincidence. But their tumors were different. A meningioma is a growth from the meninges, membranes that wrap around your brain like Saran Wrap around a fruitcake. And unlike GBMs, menigiomas are typically benign since they tend to be so slow growing. <\/p>\n However, that doesn\u2019t mean you can just ignore it like a bad mullet (as opposed to a good mullet). Depending on its location and where it grows, a meningioma can press upon vital structures in the brain and cause all sorts of problems. She eventually underwent surgery to remove the meningioma and for a while had to deal with the after effects of the surgery. The whole experience taught Menounous to be pay more attention to her health.<\/p>\n Menounos Began Experiencing Unexplained Symptoms In 2022<\/p>\n Maria Menounos speaks at Fran Drescher’s Cancer Schmancer Health Summit at The Music Center on April 20, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Corine Solberg\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Fast forward to 2022 when she started experiencing bloating and substantial pain in the left upper quadrant of her abdomen. \u201cI remember like all of 2022 trying to figure out what was going on,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was taking photos in the mirror. I had this big, like, where is this coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n She continued by saying, \u201cSo I went to the doctor, then we did additional tests like endoscopy and colonoscopy, but nothing was coming back to explain these pains. And then the pains got worse, they got really, really bad, and then I got a CT scan and that said, I was clear, too.\u201d <\/p>\n But it still wasn\u2019t clear what was causing these symptoms. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I basically took matters into my own hands and did some additional screening that I found this rare form of pancreatic cancer,\u201d she explained. A full body MRI in 2023 revealed cancer in her pancreas. <\/p>\n Menounos Had A Rare Type Of Pancreatic Cancer<\/p>\n Her mother had recently passed away from the brain cancer and now Menounos thought she herself was a \u201cgoner.\u201d She had heard that people don\u2019t tend to survive too long after getting diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But rather than the more common adenocarcinoma of the pancreas that arise from the cells lining the pancreatic ducts this was a neuroendocrine cancer arising from the hormone-producing cells of the pancreas. Plus, it was still at stage 2, meaning that it hadn\u2019t yet spread to the lymph nodes and beyond. That made it more likely to be completely removed by surgery. <\/p>\n When it comes to surgery, the joke is that the only minor surgery for you is when it is on someone else. But surgery for pancreatic cancer is especially major and grueling. The pancreas is tucked deep among various vital structures in your abdomen. So, cutting out part of pancreas involves rearranging things in there. The surgery did manage to get the mass out along with her surrounding lymph nodes and spleen as well as a big ol\u2019 fibroid. \u201cFortunately, they found that the tumor was still confined within the pancreas,\u201d she told me. \u201cThey had like removed 17 lymph nodes. It was a long surgery.\u201d In this case, long meant around 10 hours, which is longer than it would take to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.<\/p>\n For Menounos, Early Detection Was Key<\/p>\n What was even longer was recovery from the surgery. \u201cYeah, it took a minute,\u201d she remarked tongue-in-cheek figuratively and not literally. \u201cI was lucky that they got it all out and it hadn\u2019t spread anywhere.\u201d As a result, Menounos was able to welcome along with her husband Keven Undergaro the arrival of their daughter Athena via a surrogate that year. Menounos had to recover from the grueling surgery, which ain\u2019t easy, and she has to continue to go through regular testing to make sure things are OK. You could say that Menounos\u2014who has also made various appearance with World Wrestling Entertainment, co-hosting WWE Raw and even getting into the ring herself\u2014 has certainly wrestled with some major health issues over the past decade. Nonetheless, she said, \u201cI\u2019m really blessed because if I hadn\u2019t gone through the additional screenings, I might not be here right now.\u201d <\/p>\n Menounos Hosts The Heal Squad Podcast<\/p>\n All of these experiences made it natural for her to do two things. One is to host a podcast called Heal Squad. This is where she discusses her and others\u2019 health journeys and helps people how to advocate for themselves through this Jumanji-esque jungle known as the U.S. healthcare system. \u201cEven with really well-intentioned doctors, the system is set up, unfortunately, to help you when you\u2019re already sick,\u201d she lamented. \u201cThey\u2019re not set up to really really be preventative, and this is why I\u2019m so passionate about teaching people to be the CEO of their health and to take control of their health, because you have to be the one that\u2019s doing the preventative measures with your diet, with your sleep habits, with your circadian function habits, with everything, and then especially with expanded screenings.\u201d<\/p>\n Menounos Is Working With Exact Sciences<\/p>\n The other thing she has done is to connect with Exact Sciences to advocate for expanded cancer screening, because in here words, “70% of annual cancers and deaths in this country don\u2019t have any routine recommended cancer screenings, and so things like pancreatic cancer, or lung cancer, esophageal, stomach cancer, these have the highest morbidity risks and are the most deadliest cancers, and we haven\u2019t have any regular screenings for them.\u201d I\u2019ve written before in Forbes <\/a>about how Exact Sciences makes Cologuard, a test used to screen your poop for colon cancer. But in the end, that\u2019s not all that Exact Sciences does. At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that the company also makes Cancerguard<\/a>, a blood test that can be used to screen for the presence of biomarkers associated with over 50 different types and subtypes of cancer. Included in this 50 are many cancers for which there aren\u2019t currently other types of routine screening methods like liver, pancreatic, ovarian, gastric and esophageal cancer.<\/p>\n