CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Reveals She Has Ovarian Cancer, Has Started Chemotherapy; How To Spot The Signs of ‘The Cancer That Whispers’

Christiane Amanpour is battling ovarian cancer.

The CNN host shared the news on Monday after returning to work following a month-long absence. She also revealed that she had already undergone surgery and had begun receiving chemotherapy.

"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, and I'm confident,” said CNN’s chief international anchor.

Amanapour, 63, later explained that she hoped to raise awareness and encourage more people to get tested by sharing the news of her diagnosis.

"I'm telling you this in the interest of transparency, but in truth really mostly as a shoutout to early diagnoses,” she said on Monday. “To urge women to educate themselves on this disease, to get all the regular screenings and scans that you can. To always listen to your bodies. And of course, to ensure that your legitimate medical concerns are not dismissed or diminished."

Some personal news from me: pic.twitter.com/D5noRnfXfA

Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) June 14, 2021

Amanpour is being treated in England, where she has been hosting her CNN show from home since the start of the COVID pandemic.

The British-Iranian journalist spent her childhood living in Tehran and then England before crossing the pond to attend college at the University of Rhode Island. It was there that she met John F. Kennedy Jr, who attended the nearby Brown University and would be her best friend until his tragic death in 1999.

Amanpour was hired by CNN upon graduation and has worked at the network for almost all of her 38-year career. In 1996 she began to appear on 60 Minutes as a special correspondent, filing a handful of stories for nine seasons while still attending to her duties at CNN.  She did exit CNN briefly for a role at ABC News in 2010, where she hosted The Week. That turned out to be little more than a trial separation though, and in 2012 she returned to her former employer.

In 2018 she once again started pulling double duty as host of Amanpour & Company on PBS. She was tapped to lead the global-affairs program after PBS dropped longtime host Charlie Rose following allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment from multiple young woman who had been in his employ.

Amanpour has covered wars and conflicts in Bosnia, Israel, Syria, and Rwanda; interviewed everyone from Yasser Arafat and Muammar Gaddafi to Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac to Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour; been awarded with two Peabody Awards and an Emmy; and been featured in the films Iron Man 2 and The Pink Panther 2 over the course of her storied career.

Amanpour married James Rubin in 1998 before divorcing the former Assistant Secretary of State under Bill Clinton in 2018. The couple welcomed their only child in 2000, son Darius John Rubin.

Understanding Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is when the ovaries, the female reproductive organs, become cancerous. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2021 about 21,410 women in the United States will receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and about 13,770 women will die from the disease.

Dr. Beth Karlan, a gynecologic oncologist at UCLA Medical Center, says that ovarian cancer can be difficult to recognize with its subtle symptoms.

RELATED: Ovarian Cancer Symptoms Can Be Hard to Spot

"Ovarian cancer does not have any specific symptoms," Karlan said in an earlier interview with SurvivorNet. "It's often referred to as the cancer that whispers, in that it has symptoms that are really very vague…and nothing that may bring your attention directly to the ovaries."

Ovarian Cancer: The Cancer That Whispers

Dr. Karlan wants women to keep an eye out for a variety of possible symptoms.

"The symptoms include things like feeling full earlier than you usually would when your appetite is strong… Feeling bloated," she added. "Some changes in your bowel habits. Some pain in the pelvis. These are symptoms women may have every month. These are not very specific. But what we've found from multiple studies, it's this constellation of symptoms."

Recent findings suggest that ovarian cancer screenings, unfortunately, do not save lives, but it is important to note that they can still detect tumors at an earlier stage. And if a screening helps detect a tumor sooner, it is possible that an earlier diagnosis could potentially alleviate the severity of treatment for women.

Our advice to readers: See your doctor if you feel like something is off. Given that ovarian cancer can have no symptoms or a myriad of symptoms that you might easily brush off as nothing, it’s important to always seek medical attention when your gut is telling you something might be wrong. That doesn’t mean we should assume the worst every time we feel bloated or have a change in appetite, but it does mean that we should always try to listen to the signs our body is giving us.

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