The 95-year-old actor said a doctor initially dismissed a lump before a second opinion led to a shocking Stage 4 malignant melanoma<\/a> diagnosis.<\/p>\n “So, I had a lump and the doctor, friendly doctor, said, ‘Oh, it’s a salivary gland. Just massage it there,'” Shatner recalled on “CBS Mornings”<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n WILLIAM SHATNER AND DAUGHTER MELANIE REVEAL THEY BATTLED STAGE 4 CANCER AT THE SAME TIME<\/a><\/p>\n A second opinion saved William Shatner’s life after his initial doctor dismissed a lump. (Santiago Felipe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n A concerned Shatner turned to a doctor friend for another opinion.<\/p>\n “And he put his hands here,” he said, touching his face. “And he said, ‘You better get this out,\u2019 like that.”<\/p>\n That second opinion led to a life-saving diagnosis.<\/p>\n Shatner said an oncologist told him, “We got to take that out now.”<\/p>\n LIKE WHAT YOU\u2019RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS<\/a><\/p>\n Shatner said a doctor friend urged him to be seen after another doctor dismissed his concerns. (Mat Hayward\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n He continued to explain how the cancer had already grown inside his body.<\/p>\n “It had spread to my brain. There were little points of light in my brain and little points of light, I think, in my lung,” he said. “Stage 4.”<\/p>\n DAVE COULIER REVEALS 45-POUND WEIGHT LOSS, GRUELING SIDE EFFECTS FROM CANCER FIGHTS<\/a><\/p>\n Shatner underwent surgery<\/a> to remove the tumor and later completed two years of immunotherapy.<\/p>\n While Shatner was battling his cancer, his daughter was fighting her own life-threatening diagnosis.<\/p>\n Melanie Shatner Gretsch discovered a lump in her breast nearly a year before her father’s diagnosis. Although a mammogram months earlier had not detected anything concerning, she trusted her instincts and pushed for another check.<\/p>\n Shatner and his daughter, Melanie Shatner Gretsch, battled cancer at the same time. (Barry King\/WireImage)<\/p>\n Gretsch was later diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer<\/a> that had spread to the lymph nodes in her chest.<\/p>\n At first, she thought she was in the clear.<\/p>\n CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER<\/a><\/p>\n “Something just said, \u2018You need to check again,\u2019” she said in the joint interview with her beloved father.<\/p>\n But the cancer was far more aggressive than she realized.<\/p>\n The “Star Trek” legend has stayed busy after his health scare, with new books, a podcast and music projects on the horizon. (Michael Becker\/FOX)<\/p>\n “And I [would have] died because it was a super aggressive kind of cancer, breast cancer, and it had already escaped the breast wall and had gone into my chest,” Gretsch said.<\/p>\n Her treatment was intense \u2014 months of chemotherapy, 30 rounds of radiation, a double mastectomy and a year of immunotherapy.<\/p>\n During her health battle<\/a>, Gretsch said there was one moment when she needed her father more than ever.<\/p>\n “I was just in one of those moments where you want your daddy, you know, like you’re little. You’re feeling very little, and you’re feeling, \u2018This is really scary.\u2019 And I called him,” she said.<\/p>\n By the end of 2024, both Shatner and Gretsch were declared cancer-free.<\/p>\n Gretsch said telling her father the news was an emotional milestone.<\/p>\n![\"William](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/william-shatner.jpg\")
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