Princess Kate Middleton announced on Friday that she’s been diagnosed with cancer following major abdominal surgery in January.

The Princess of Wales has just begun a treatment regimen of “preventative chemotherapy,” she said in a video message.

After Middleton underwent “major abdominal surgery” in January, it was initially thought that her condition was “non-cancerous,” she said in the video message.

KATE MIDDLETON ANNOUNCES SHE HAS CANCER, UNDERGOING CHEMOTHERAPY TREATMENT

However, later testing revealed that “cancer had been present.” 

She did not specify what type of cancer was diagnosed.

What is preventative chemotherapy?

Preventative chemotherapy, otherwise known as chemoprevention, is the use of certain drugs to help lower the risk of developing cancer or prevent it from returning, according to the NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI).

These include drugs like tamoxifen and raloxifene, which can be used in the prevention of “certain types of breast cancer in women who are at high risk of developing the disease,” the NCI said.

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Dr. Christina Annunziata, senior vice president of extramural discovery science at the American Cancer Society in Virginia, said that preventative chemo is given when the cancer has been removed, but there might be a few “microscopic cells” still remaining.

“There may be a few cells that have already spread and have the ability to regrow the cancer, and this is the purpose of the chemo to be given in this setting,” she told Fox News Digital. “The chemo is given to kill these cells and ‘prevent’ the cancer from relapsing or coming back.”

Another term for this treatment is “adjuvant chemotherapy,'” she said.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) website states that a doctor will use chemoprevention methods in cases where patients are high risk due to family history or a previous cancer diagnosis. 

Chemoprevention can involve medicines, vitamins or other substances dependent on cancer type, according to City of Hope.

Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton in a recent photo. The princess on Friday asked for privacy as she focuses on her treatment and recovery. (Getty Images)

These drugs are not used to treat cancer — and taking them “does not fully protect a person from developing cancer in the future,” noted ASCO.

Some of the more common side effects of chemotherapy include hair loss, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, easy bruising and bleeding, appetite changes, weight changes, anemia and gastrointestinal issues.

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The princess on Friday asked for privacy as she focuses on treatment and recovery.

“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” she said. 

“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” Middleton said in her announcement on Friday. (Max Mumby/Getty Images)

“I am well and getting stronger every day by focusing on the things that will help me heal, in my mind, body and spirits.”

The princess noted that she looks forward to returning to work, but that she now “must focus on making a full recovery.”

“At this time, I am also thinking of all those whose lives have been affected by cancer,” she added. 

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“For everyone facing this disease, in whatever form, please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone.”

Fox News Digital’s Lauryn Overhultz contributed to this report.

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• Fertility rates are projected to drop below sustainable levels globally by the end of the century, according to a new study.
• This trend is expected to create a divide between “baby boom” and “baby bust” regions, with low-income countries experiencing the boom.
• The study predicts that by 2050, more than half of countries will have fertility rates below replacement levels.

Fertility rates in nearly all countries will be too low to sustain population levels by the end of the century, and most of the world’s live births will be occurring in poorer countries, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The trend will lead to a “baby boom” and “baby bust” divide across the world, with the boom concentrated in low-income countries that are more susceptible to economic and political instability, senior researcher Stein Emil Vollset from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle said in a statement.

The study reported in The Lancet projects 155 of 204 countries and territories worldwide, or 76%, will have fertility rates below population replacement levels by 2050. By 2100, that is expected to rise to 198, or 97%, researchers estimated.

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The forecasts are based on surveys, censuses, and other sources of data collected from 1950 through 2021 as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study.

Over three-quarters of live births will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries by the end of the century, with more than half taking place in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers said.

The global fertility rate – the average number of births per woman – has fallen from around 5 children in 1950 to 2.2 in 2021, data show.

By 2021, 110 countries and territories (54%) had rates below the population replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.

The study highlights a particularly worrying trend for countries like South Korea and Serbia, where the fertility rate is less than 1.1 child per female, exposing them to challenges of a dwindling workforce.

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Many of the most resource-limited countries “will be grappling with how to support the youngest, fastest-growing population on the planet in some of the most politically and economically unstable, heat-stressed, and health system-strained places on earth,” Vollset said.

While tumbling fertility rates in high-income countries reflect more opportunities for education and employment for women, researchers said the trend signals an urgent need for improvement in access to modern contraception and female education in other regions.

In addition, “once nearly every country’s population is shrinking, reliance on open immigration will become necessary to sustain economic growth,” IHME’s Natalia Bhattacharjee, a coauthor of the report, said in a statement.

The authors noted that predictions were limited by quantity and quality of past data, especially for the 2020 to 2021 COVID-19 pandemic period.

Many thousands of prostate cancer cases were missed during the disruption of the COVID pandemic.

Those are the findings of a new study published in BJU International last month.

Researchers from the University of Oxford and other U.K. universities analyzed a dataset of 285,160 participants from OpenSAFELY-TPP, a large, nationally representative dataset of routine health care records.

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They focused on 165,410 men in the U.K. who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer between Jan. 2015 and July 2023.

In 2020, diagnoses of prostate cancer dropped by 31% over the prior year.

The decrease was 18% in 2021. 

By 2022, the diagnosed cases had returned to expected levels.

“Given that our dataset represents 40% of the population, we estimate that proportionally the pandemic led to 20,000 missed prostate cancer diagnoses in England alone,” the researchers wrote in the study discussion. 

PROSTATE CANCER MYTHS AND COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AMID HIGH-PROFILE PROSTATE CONDITIONS

During that time, the age at the time of diagnosis shifted to older individuals.

“The increase in incidence recorded in 2023 was not enough to account for the missed cases,” the researchers also stated — which means the diagnoses have not yet “caught up” to those that flew under the radar in 2020 and 2021.

Based on these findings, the researchers are recommending that health care providers focus on finding the men who were affected. 

Diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2020 dropped by 31% over the prior year, a new study has revealed. (iStock)

“More research is needed to investigate the consequences of this on patients and health care systems,” they noted.

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, pointed out that there is no universal screening program in the U.K. for prostate cancer.

“That’s because the feeling is that the PSA [prostate-specific antigen] may be inaccurate,” said Siegel, who was not involved in the new U.K. study. 

NEW PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT COULD BE ON THE HORIZON, SAY UK RESEARCHERS: ‘TREMENDOUSLY EXCITING’

“I disagree with that, because most of us here in the U.S. (primary care docs and urologists) follow trends in the PSA, knowing it isn’t perfect but using it as a guide to something going on in the prostate.”

The PSA is a blood test that measures the level of a specific protein that is made by the prostate.

There is no universal screening program in the U.K. for prostate cancer, Dr. Marc Siegel of New York City noted. (iStock)

“In the U.K., there is currently a massive ongoing study on the effectiveness of different kinds of screening modalities for prostate cancer, but in the U.S., many major medical centers — including mine — have already integrated the latest MRI tests to look at patients with high PSA or increasing trends prior to prostate biopsy,” Siegel told Fox News Digital.

“The delayed diagnoses in the U.K. are not surprising.” 

“The MRI also allows you to target the biopsy to a certain area of abnormality when needed.”

Regarding the effects of the pandemic, Siegel noted that lockdowns led to a delay in routine medical care both in the U.S. and in the U.K.

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“The delayed diagnoses in the U.K. are not surprising,” he added.

The study did have some limitations, the researchers acknowledged.

First, it focused only on data from England — so it does not apply to global populations.

Based on the new findings, the researchers recommend that health care providers focus on finding the men who were affected.  (iStock)

It is also possible that some cases were missed, as the diagnoses were pulled from primary care health records rather than cancer registries.

“However, in the U.K., the information about cancer diagnosis is sent to primary care within the hospital discharge letters and primary care is a valid source of these data,” the researchers stated.

“We validated the results against other published studies, and they closely align, confirming the validity of the methodology.”

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The study doesn’t prove that COVID caused the dip in diagnoses, the researchers noted — as it’s possible there are “multiple explanatory factors not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

But the study did note that “during the COVID-19 pandemic, the resources, and the attention in healthcare systems globally, shifted toward preventing and managing COVID-19. Access to the non-COVID-19-related healthcare services changed, waiting times increased, and cancer pathways including treatment standards were adapted.”

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It also said, in part, that “patients’ healthcare-seeking behavior changed as people adopted social distancing (limiting face-to-face contact) and shielding (safeguarding high-risk people) to protect themselves and others from an infection.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the study authors for additional comment.

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Allergy season is here — and it’s earlier and stronger than expected.

More than 80 million Americans deal with itchy eyes, runny nose and other symptoms of seasonal allergies, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

The level of misery people will face depends on where they live and what they’re allergic to, but there are things you can do to feel better.

8 THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE IN YOUR HOME TO BEAT SPRING ALLERGIES

Pollen counts were high early

Dr. Rachna Shah usually starts looking at pollen counts in the Chicago area in April. But she peeked at her data in mid-February, and saw tree pollen was already at a “moderate” level.

“This season has been so nuts,” said Shah, an allergist and director of the Loyola Medicine Allergy Count. “Granted, it was a pretty mild winter, but I didn’t expect it to be so early.”

Shah said she believes this season will be longer than other years, assuming the weather remains warm. Experts say climate change has led to longer and more intense allergy seasons.

Which cities have it the worst?

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America issues an annual ranking of the most challenging cities to live in if you have allergies, based on over-the-counter medicine use, pollen counts and the number of available allergy specialists. This year, the top five were Wichita, Kansas; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Greenville, South Carolina; Dallas; and Oklahoma City.

Dr. Nana Mireku is an allergist in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and said “people are pretty miserable right now and allergists are pretty busy.”

Which pollens cause allergies?

There are three main types of pollen that cause seasonal allergies. Earlier in the spring, tree pollen is the main culprit. After that, grasses pollinate, followed by weeds in the late summer and early fall.

Some of the most common tree pollens that cause allergies include birch, cedar, cottonwood, maple, elm, oak and walnut, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Grasses that cause symptoms include Bermuda, Johnson, rye and Kentucky bluegrass.

Pollen trackers can help you plan your day

The best and first step to controlling allergies is avoiding exposure. That’s easier said than done when everyone wants to enjoy spring weather.

To prevent allergy issues, keep windows closed at home and in the car, avoid going out when pollen counts are highest and change clothes when you get home.

Pollen trackers can help with planning. The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology tracks levels through a network of counting stations across the U.S. Counts are available at its website and via email.

How to relieve allergy symptoms

The first thing to figure out is what specifically you’re allergic to, Mireku said, and many Americans are allergic to several things at once. Allergists can run tests for different triggers.

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Over-the-counter nasal sprays can help relieve symptoms, but they take a while to kick in, so it’s best to start them in early March, Shah said.

Antihistamines are another option. Shah said she’s seen some patients benefit from switching to a similar brand if one stops working, but said that there isn’t much broader data to back the recommendation.

For young children and people who have to take many different allergy medications, immunotherapies in the form of shots and oral drops can help desensitize the immune system to allergens, treating symptoms at their root.

Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a human patient, the hospital announced on Thursday.

The 62-year-old patient, Richard Slayman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, had end-stage kidney disease, according to a press release from the hospital. 

After receiving his first kidney transplant from a human donor in 2017, Slayman’s organ began failing again in May 2023, when he went on dialysis.

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He received the pig kidney — which was genetically edited to make it more compatible with a human recipient and to eliminate the risk of infection.

Slayman is in recovery. He’s said to be doing well and is expected to return home soon.

“The success of this transplant is the culmination of efforts by thousands of scientists and physicians over several decades,” said Tatsuo Kawai, M.D., PhD, director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the release.

“We are privileged to have played a significant role in this milestone. Our hope is that this transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from kidney failure,” he also said.

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Slayman has been a patient at Mass General Transplant Center for 11 years.

In a statement, he said he has “the highest level of trust in the doctors, nurses and clinical staff who have cared for me.”

He also said, “I saw [the pig kidney transplant] as not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive.” 

The pig kidney was genetically edited to make it more compatible with a human recipient and to eliminate the risk of infection. (Massachusetts General Hospital)

“I want to thank everyone at MGH who has cared for me, especially Dr. [Winifred] Williams, Dr. Kawai, the surgeon who performed my first kidney transplant, and now this one, and Dr. [Leonardo] Riella, who has orchestrated the logistics behind this new transplant.”

He said further, “They have supported me during every step of the journey, and I have faith they will continue to do so.”

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Joren C. Madsen, M.D., director of the MGH Transplant Center, called Slayman the “real hero.”

“The success of this pioneering surgery, once deemed unimaginable, would not have been possible without his courage and willingness to embark on a journey into uncharted medical territory,” Madsen said in a statement. 

The genetically modified pig kidney is shown as it’s transported to surgery. Kidneys top the list of the most commonly needed organs for transplant. (Massachusetts General Hospital)

“As the global medical community celebrates this monumental achievement, Mr. Slayman becomes a beacon of hope for countless individuals suffering from end-stage renal disease and opens a new frontier in organ transplantation.” 

‘Historic milestone’

The successful surgery marks a “historic milestone” in xenotransplantation, which is the transplant of organs across species, the hospital noted.

This type of procedure could potentially provide an alternative solution to the global organ shortage, the release stated.

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“An abundant supply of organs resulting from this technological advance may go far to finally achieve health equity and offer the best solution to kidney failure – a well-functioning kidney – to all patients in need,” said Dr. Winfred Williams, Slayman’s nephrologist.

The successful surgery marks a “historic milestone” in xenotransplantation, which is the transplant of organs across species, the hospital noted. (Massachusetts General Hospital)

More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are currently on waiting lists for organ transplants, and 17 of those die each day, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

At MGH alone, more than 1,400 patients are currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant.

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Kidneys top the list of the most commonly needed organs, as end-stage kidney disease is expected to increase by anywhere from 29% to 69% by 2030.

MGH previously performed the world’s first human organ transplant, of a kidney, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1954.

Fox News Digital reached out to MGH and additional physicians requesting comment.

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