Adrian Chiles has revealed he has been diagnosed with skin cancer, after a biopsy confirmed that a patch of skin removed from his shoulder was cancerous.
The broadcaster, 58, wrote in his Guardian column that he has been treated for squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer that develops in the top layer of the skin.
Chiles explained that he sought medical advice after noticing a change in a small area on his shoulder and stressed that his case is “nothing serious”.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot, it was a squamous cell carcinoma,” he wrote. “All removed and won’t spread. So not nothing, but not serious. Needs keeping an eye on.”
He explained that a dermatologist recommended it be removed after the results of a biopsy confirmed it was cancerous.
“I was back in for the excision, performed by the same guy I’d seen before,” he explained. “This time, he said he was pretty sure it was cancer, cancerous, a carcinoma, whatever.”
“All I wanted him to do was stop saying worrying things and, instead, whip out his scalpel, go in as deep as he fancied, and dig the bastard thing out. This he did,” adding that he had stitches for 10 days.
However Chiles admitted the period waiting for results left him increasingly anxious - and 23 days after the procedure, he received two NHS appointment notifications but no mention of his results.
The former One Show presenter said he found it almost impossible to speak to anyone who could help, repeatedly being met with automated phone lines - and eventually received a message via an app “powered by Patients Know Best”, informing him that he wouldn’t be given his results until 18 December.
“By now I wanted to flush my phone down the toilet,” he wrote. “This crap masquerades as communication, but communication is either two-way or it’s nothing.”
He eventually secured a call back from a nurse who was able to give him the news directly, a moment he described as an enormous relief.
“The human contact feels as good as any treatment or cure,” he added.
Chiles is best known for presenting Match of the Day 2 and for his high-profile move to ITV in a multi-million-pound deal to host its football coverage.
He also fronted The One Show alongside Christine Lampard, though he has since admitted the magazine format was never quite to his taste.
“You go into this business because you like asking people questions, you're curious,” he shared previously on How To Be 60.
“Now in a three minute interview on The One Show, between two films about unrelated things, you don't get much space to exercise your curiosity, but ten or 15 minutes on the radio, it's a different thing.”
The presenter, who now hosts a show on Radio 5 Live as well as writing a weekly newspaper column.
Chiles isn’t the only celebrity this year who has shared their skin cancer diagnosis this year.
Comedian Katherine Ryan revealed in March that she had been diagnosed with skin cancer for a second time, two decades after her first melanoma diagnosis at the age of 21.
While Gordon Ramsay revealed in August that he underwent surgery to remove a patch of skin cancer.
