Dolph Lundgren has revealed for the first time that he has been battling kidney cancer since 2015.
Make an appearance in the interview series Learn more about Graham Bensinger, the 65-year-old Swedish actor opened up about how doctors in Los Angeles discovered and removed a cancerous tumor in his kidney in 2015. For the next five years, the scans were OK, but in 2020, several more tumors were found in the same area.
Doctors found and removed a total of six tumors during the operation, but a video shot the next day found Lundgren refreshed. “If it dies, it dies,” he said, quoting from Rocky IV. “It’s going to die.”
However, Lundgren is not out of the woods yet. He eventually got a call that doctors had found another tumor on his liver, which ended up being inoperable because it had grown too large to be removed.
Lundgren was later told in 2021 that he also had tumors in his lungs, stomach, spine and kidneys, according to his fiancée Emma Krokdal. The actor added that he was told he had “two or three years” to live, but “you could tell from his (doctor’s) voice” that it could be shorter. “They think it must be,” he said.
Lundgren remembers being at peace when he received the news because he was “living in one like a fifth”, but still decided to seek a second opinion. Thanks to oncologist Dr. Alexandra Drakaki, he underwent a new treatment that caused his tumor to shrink dramatically.
The tumors shrank by 20 or 30 percent “in three months,” according to Lundgren. That number goes up to 90% by 2022, and they’re currently taking out the remaining scar tissue.
While the cancer is not in remission, Dr. Drakaki thinks Lundgren may still live for a few more years as they keep him on medication “for as long as possible” and identify new targets for treatment.
In another part of the interview, Lundgren admits to using steroids on and off for a decade in the ’80s and ’90s, and wonders “if there is some connection between testosterone therapy and HGH therapy and cancer.”
Lundgren’s next major movie to hit theaters will be Aquaman and the Lost KingdomDecember 20 this year.