The 63-year-old former “Good Morning America” host revealed that she is fighting an “aggressive” form of the disease and that she is already receiving chemotherapy to be followed by surgery and radiation. She said the cancer was caught early and that she has told her seven children she will be “fine.”

 

“I sincerely hope she is going to be fine. If they are doing all that treatment, she obviously has a form of invasive breast cancer,” said Marsha T. Oakley, a registered nurse who is a certified breast cancer navigator and two-time breast cancer survivor.  “You don’t do all of that for non-invasive breast cancer.”


 

 

According to Oakley, who works at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore and has advised women with breast cancer for 18 years, Lunden faces “a long recuperation.”

 

“The chemotherapy can take six months or more, depending on what type of breast cancer there is, and then there is a waiting period before surgery to make sure all the chemotherapy is out of the body to allow the healing process to take place. And then she will face radiation,” Oakley, a former member of the FDA National Mammography Quality Assurance Committee, told Newsmax Health. 
 

“That’s a best case scenario because it assumes there won’t be any complications or other factors that could lengthen the process.”

Extended courses of breast cancer chemotherapy and radiation usually lead to loss of hair, weight loss, and other side effects.

Giving chemotherapy to cancer patients before surgery, which is called “neoadjuvant” treatment, is performed to shrink the tumor and make it easier for the surgeon to remove.

 

Lunden has said that she knows she faces a difficult battle, and has gone into “warrior mode” to fight it.

 

The star was diagnosed after undergoing a mammogram and initially being told that everything was “clear.” However, a sonogram was done because she has dense breasts and it revealed the cancer, Lunden said.

 

This scenario is somewhat unusual in that “sonograms are usually reserved for younger women with dense breasts,” said Oakley. She noted that by the time women are in menopause their breasts become less dense, which means suspicious areas can be picked up using mammography. For these women, 3-D mammography is superior to standard digital mammography, she said.

 

The 3-D form of mammography is formally known as “tomosynthesis” and is performed in the same way as a standard mammogram. With tomosynthesis, however, the machine takes X-rays at different angles, which creates a three-dimensional picture of the breast, allowing it to better detect cancer spots.  

 

Lunden’s late father was a surgical oncologist and the star says she wants to further his legacy by using the news of her cancer to encourage women to get screened.

 

Meanwhile, she remains optimistic.

 

On her blog, Lunden writes: “Early detection is so crucial, I consider myself fortunate that I found this in the early stage and the prognosis is so promising.”