Maria Menounos has revealed that her cancerous tumor was initially overlooked by doctors — allowing it to double in size.
The entertainment journalist has been open about her pancreatic cancer journey since she was diagnosed with stage two of the disease in January.
Appearing on the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast, Menounos — who is expecting her first child via surrogate — said her tumor became substantially bigger since her first scan in November.
She then underwent a full-body MRI scan, which ultimately led to her diagnosis.
“When they found the tumor in the MRI, they said, ‘Can we go back and get the records and look at the November scan? I bet it was there,'” she explained.
“And it was. At that point it was 2 centimeters (0.79 inches) and by the time they had found it was almost 4 centimeters (1.5 inches), it had doubled in size in two months.”
The 45-year-old presenter said she was “still getting to the bottom” of how doctors could miss such a serious diagnosis.
“What I’ve learned since is … different scans have the ability to see different things better,” she said.
“For this, an MRI was what’s really going to see it, for other things CAT scans are better, for others things an ultrasound’s better. It’s a really complicated process …”
“So the radiologist went back and he was able to see it and do an addendum and say, ‘Yes, now with the knowledge it was there, we’re able to see it is there,'” she added.
Menounos recalled suffering from chronic abdominal pain prior to being diagnosed.
“I had severe diarrhea for a month and a half. I did all the stool tests, they came back negative, nothing was bad. I went and got a CAT scan, they said, ‘You’re fine,'” she explained.
“But my pain kept persisting, and any time I complained about the pain, my doctor was like, ‘We’ve done all the tests.'”
Menounos revealed her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in a People interview in May.
Her announcement came three months after she and her husband, Keven Undergaro, told the world that they are expecting a baby girl following a decade of fertility struggles.
“I was just f—king gutted,” Menounos said of learning the diagnosis. “I was just guttural crying and I was like, ‘I can’t believe God just blessed me with a baby, I’m gonna have a baby.’
“We were two months along and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe I’m finally going to have a baby and I’m not going to get to meet her.'”
