Maria Menounos has revealed the bizarre symptom that led to her being diagnosed with one of the deadliest forms of cancer.
The TV personality, 45, from Massachusetts, began suffering excruciating pain that felt like she was “exploding inside” and bloating after eating farro salad during a flight.
Doctors initially dismissed her symptoms, but after going to a second hospital for a scan she was diagnosed with stage two pancreatic cancer.
Menounos, who at the time was awaiting the birth of her daughter Athena via a surrogate, had surgery to remove the 1.5-inch tumor and said she was now in remission.
Maria Menounos, 45, from Massachusetts, experienced excruciating pain in her abdomen after eating a farro salad. She was eventually diagnosed with stage two pancreatic cancer
She has revealed her diagnosis and urged others to advocate for their health even if doctors tell them their symptoms are nothing to worry about
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers in America; only one in ten patients survive more than a year after diagnosis.
The disease is a less common form of cancer, with approximately 64,000 cases diagnosed each year – accounting for three percent of all cancer cases.
But it is normally only discovered in later stages, when the disease has become more advanced and spread to other parts of the body, making it more difficult to treat.
This is because it rarely causes symptoms in the early stages and the warning signs can be so subtle that they are dismissed as minor health problems.
According to the American Cancer Society, about two-thirds of patients diagnosed with cancer are over the age of 65 and almost all are over 45.
Menounos said today that her case highlights the need to listen to the symptoms in the body, even if doctors dismiss them.
She said TODAY that after eating the salad she got “that kind of pain where you felt like you were going to explode inside.”
“I thought it was the farro. “I thought I was really developing a gluten intolerance and my stomach wasn’t dealing with it well,” she added.
Menounos went to her doctor for an endoscopy and a colonoscopy after the stomach pain appeared in 2022, but nothing unusual emerged.
She also underwent a CT scan, which also found nothing; the results even described her pancreas as “unremarkable.”
But her symptoms persisted, with the TV personality also suffering from diarrhea and suffering again in pain in November 2022.
This prompted her to go to a separate hospital in January for a full-body MRI scan, which revealed the tumor in her pancreas. She was later told that the CT scan had missed this because it was not as clearly visible as on the MRI.
She underwent emergency surgery and in February 2023 the tumor was surgically removed, along with part of her pancreas and part of the spleen and 17 lymph nodes – which are part of a separate circulatory system in the body for fluids.
The cancer had not spread in her body and she did not require further treatment.
The images above show the cancer in stage 0 and stages IA and IB
The above shows stage two pancreatic cancer, in which a tumor has developed in the pancreas
In stage three, the tumor has grown and begun to spread to nearby lymph nodes
And in stage four, it begins to spread through the bloodstream to other parts of the body
Menounos is doing well now, but she continues to monitor the symptoms and records any distressing feelings in a book so she can keep track.
Her daughter Athena is now four months old and she described her as the ‘love of my life’ and ‘my best medicine’.
‘She will learn that being healthy is the most important thing in her life, and from there she can achieve and do anything she wants,” Menounos said.
‘I think my next chapter of my life will be the healthiest because I’ve been forced to really reevaluate my health in such a profound way. It changed the course of everything.”
She is unveiling her case as part of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month in November.
Dr. Julie Fleshman, Chair of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, said: “We are so grateful to Maria and our other PanCAN Ambassadors for courageously sharing their stories to raise awareness of the importance of early detection for survival.
‘In addition to educating the public about the risks and symptoms of pancreatic cancer, PanCAN will continue to invest significantly in research to find a strategy for early detection of this disease.’
Pancreatic cancer causes few symptoms in the early stages because it grows deep in the abdomen – which also makes it difficult to detect.
Symptoms that are triggered – such as stomach pain and intestinal problems – can also be easily missed or attributed to other health problems.