Latest news with #JanetKukreja
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Deion Sanders Shared Urgent Health Message During Press Conference
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders was quite candid and vulnerable Monday, as he detailed his offseason health battle in a press conference. Sanders, 57, who spent time away from the program with an ailment that was kept under wraps, revealed that he was diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent surgery. Thankfully, Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urological oncology at University of Colorado Cancer Center, who participated in the media briefing with Sanders, said the coach is "cured" after having his bladder removed. Throughout the event, Sanders repeatedly expressed his gratefulness for his doctors and thanked God. He also had an important message to anyone watching at home: go to the doctor and get checked. "Men, everybody, get checked out. Because if it wasn't for me getting tested for something else, they wouldn't have stumbled up on this," Sanders said. "Make sure you get the right care because without wonderful people like this, I wouldn't be sitting here today because it grew so expeditiously. But please get yourself checked." Sanders added that if he hadn't been diligent about getting examined, it "could have been a whole other gathering" today. Sanders had to have his bladder removed because the type of cancer he was dealing with had a high recurrence rate, Kukreja said. "We proceeded with the removal of the bladder tumor. We removed the tumor. It was very high grade, invading through the bladder wall, not into the muscle layer, something we call high-risk non-invasive bladder cancer," she explained. Colorado assistant athletic trainer Lauren Askevold also said Sanders had a standard ACT scan of his vascular pattern due to his history of blood clots. Everything was fine vascular-wise, but after this test, Sanders' primary care doctor referred the coach to a urologist. "I didn't have any signs," Sanders added. Moving forward, Sanders said he is fully "back" and ready to lead the Buffaloes onto the field this season, starting with the opener against Georgia Tech on Aug. 29. Deion Sanders Shared Urgent Health Message During Press Conference first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 28, 2025
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
How Deion Sanders Beat Bladder Cancer
Head coach Deion Sanders of the University of Colorado speaks about his journey beating bladder cancer during a press conference in the Touchdown Club at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, July 28, 2025 Credit - Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post—Getty Images On July 28, University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders revealed that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer—but now, after treatment, is considered cured. 'We're going to beat it, ain't we?' Sanders, who is 57, asked one of his doctors, Dr. Janet Kukreja, who appeared on stage with him at a press conference in Boulder. 'It's beaten,' she responded, later adding that as an oncologist, she does not 'use [the word cure] lightly.' The spotlight on bladder cancer is 'long overdue,' Kukreja told TIME after the press conference. (She is the director of urologic oncology at the CU Cancer Center on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.) 'It's high time that people recognize bladder cancer is a very serious cancer, and a very common cancer.' Here's what to know about the disease, as well as what it's like to live with a restructured bladder. Who's most at risk for bladder cancer? More than 80,000 new cases of bladder cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is far more common in men than in women. 'The male to female ratio is about 60%-70% male to 30%-40% female,' says Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg, chief of the genitourinary oncology service at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. 'It's a big split.' Other common risk factors include smoking, exposure to certain industrial chemicals, older age, and chronic bladder irritation and infections. Sanders publicly hinted at a health problem throughout the football off-season, but did not reveal the cause of his symptoms until now. He was diagnosed with very high risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, Kukreja confirmed to TIME, which means his disease was confined to the inner lining of the bladder and hadn't spread to the muscle layer or the rest of the body. 'It was caught at just the right time,' she says, noting that Sanders initially learned about it incidentally from a follow-up CT scan he had related to vascular surgery. 'It was totally not what anybody thought was going to come from that,' she says. 'That's usually not how we find it. Usually we find it because people have blood in their urine.' What's bladder removal surgery? Some bladder cancer patients opt for intravesical therapy, which means chemotherapy is administered directly into the bladder; others benefit from approaches like immune checkpoint inhibitors, or a combination of both. During the press conference, Sanders said he chose to have his tumor surgically removed, which is called a cystectomy. 'Given his commitments to his family and to the team, he elected to undergo a bladder removal,' Kukreja said during the press conference. 'We performed a full robot-assisted laparoscopic bladder removal and creation of a new bladder. And I am pleased to report that the results from the surgery are that he is cured from the cancer.' There are several ways to reconstruct the bladder after removal, but Sanders' team opted for a neobladder, in which part of the intestine is used to create a new bladder that's remarkably close to normal anatomy. Patients typically stay in the hospital for two to five days after surgery, and then use a catheter for a couple weeks before beginning to train their new bladder, Kukreja says. 'When people empty, they have to kind of push their abdominal muscles, like they're doing a sit-up,' she says. 'It's not hard to learn—it's just a new muscle memory. Most people can do it and do it well.' About half of people with a neobladder experience leakage overnight, Kukreja says, which Sanders spoke candidly about during the press conference. 'It's a totally different life,' he said. 'I depend on Depends … I cannot control my bladder.' At one point, he joked that he may need to have a "porta potty on the sideline' of games in case he needed to pee. Still, patients who opt for bladder removal tend to recover well after surgery. 'Our surgeons here have looked at it, and about a year after surgery, quality of life is mostly at baseline in the most important ways,' Rosenberg says. 'People can do almost everything they want to do in life regardless of the type of urinary reconstruction. It's a big change, and it's not a trivial surgery, but it's hopefully a curative surgery and gets rid of the problem.' Catching bladder cancer on time Throughout the press conference, Sanders urged people to pay attention to their own health and get a check-up if they notice anything unusual. There's no screening test for bladder cancer, but experts agree that if you notice any blood in your urine, you should take it seriously and make a doctor's appointment. 'I can't tell you how many times people come in and they say, 'Well, a year ago I saw a little blood in my urine, and it just went away. It was there for a day, and it went away, and I kind of let it go,'' says Dr. Daniel M. Geynisman, chief of the division of genitourinary medical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. 'So now it's six months or nine months later, and that can be a huge amount of time in this disease.' Most of the time, there will be a non-cancer-related cause, he adds, but even one fleeting day of bleeding calls for proper evaluation. It's not worth taking any chances, he stresses. 'If you see blood in your urine, you have to go get it checked out,' Geynisman says. 'Do not let it go. It's not normal.' Contact us at letters@ Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
‘I depend on Depends': Deion Sanders jokes as he reveals secret bladder cancer and its aftermath
Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders revealed that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer and has since had surgery to cure the disease. Sanders, 58, revealed the news Monday and joked that he now uses Depends, the absorbent underwear brand. Sanders, dressed in a cowboy hat and a pair of sunglasses, told reporters he dropped 25 pounds as he battled the disease and encouraged everybody to 'get checked out.' 'I depend on Depends, if you know what I mean,' Sanders quipped as the room laughed. 'I truly depend on Depends. I cannot control my bladder.' "If you see a Porta-Potty on the sideline, it's real,' he added. 'I'm just telling you right now, you're going to see it." Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urologic oncology at UCHealth, told reporters Sanders had surgery to remove his bladder and create a new one. Sanders's cancer is now cured, Kukreja said as the room applauded. 'We're lucky to have found it at this stage where I could say the word cure, because I don't use that word lightly as a cancer doctor,' she said. The coach kept his diagnosis close to his chest and noted he's 'thankful' that the news didn't leak. Sanders particularly wanted to keep the news from his sons as they prepared for the NFL draft earlier this year. 'My sons, to this day, don't know what transpired,' Sanders revealed. 'I just told them something with my foot again, because I wanted them to focus on making the team and not focused on Dad.' Sanders's physicians caught his bladder cancer after he went in for a routine CT scan to check for blood clots. He encouraged others to see their doctors regularly, noting he 'probably wouldn't be sitting here today' without his medical team. 'If it wasn't for me getting tested for something else, they wouldn't have stumbled up on this,' he said. 'Make sure you go to the get the right care.' Team trainer Lauren Askevold said Sanders 'never folded one time and never wavered.' 'You couldn't ask for a better patient because he wants to get up and get going right,' she said. 'So it's been awesome. It's been a hectic journey, but there's a blessing very in disguise with all this." Sanders paused and clasped his hands as he told reporters that he's grateful for his recovery. 'It has been a tremendous journey, and I'm truly thankful that God is so good,' he said. 'God is so good. You have no idea.' This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates Solve the daily Crossword
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Health
- Associated Press
Deion Sanders says he had bladder cancer but plans to coach the Colorado Buffaloes this season
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Colorado coach Deion Sanders disclosed Monday that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer but after surgery his oncologist has considered him cured, so he plans to coach this season. Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urologic oncology at the CU Cancer Center/UCHealth University of Colorado hospital, said Sanders had his bladder removed as part of the surgical plan. 'It was dynamic. It was tough. It wasn't a cakewalk. It wasn't easy,' said Sanders, who arrived to his news conference wearing a cowboy hat and overalls along with sunglasses, which he removed after getting choked up. 'That was a fight, but we made it.' Sanders, who turns 58 next month, has drawn headlines for his health, but the focus largely was on two toes he's had amputated and concerns over blood clots. He said he's had 14 surgeries since 2021, when he was still the coach at Jackson State, but kept his cancer fight private. Sanders spoke on the eve of fall camp as he enters his third season overseeing the Buffaloes. He brought his medical team with him to discuss his diagnosis. It was revealed that a section of his intestine was reconstructed to function as a bladder. He won't need radiation or chemotherapy, Kukreja said. 'The 'C' word, when we hear that word there's normally a life sentence attached to it,' Sanders said. 'But not this time. But not this time.' Sanders said he lost about 25 pounds, leading him to joke, 'I was like Atlanta Falcons Prime at one point.' He later added: 'I truly depend on Depend, if you know what I mean. I can't control my bladder. ... Let's not be ashamed of it. Let's deal with it head on.' Just Sanders being Sanders — he remained upbeat throughout the entire process, his medical team said. 'He never folded one time and never wavered,' team trainer Lauren Askevold said. 'You couldn't ask for a better patient because he wants to get up and get going right away. ... It's been a hectic journey. It's been a lot. But there's a blessing in disguise with all of this.' Never once did Sanders waver in his belief that he would return to the sideline. 'I always knew I was going to coach again. It was never in my spirit, in my heart, that God wouldn't allow me to coach again,' he said. 'I just didn't want to be running down to the hospital once a week when I have all of this on my plate. I don't want that. I was like, 'OK, can they bring one of those machines and put them in the office?'' Athletic director Rick George echoed Sanders. 'He's so positive, and he said he'd be back,' George said. 'I had every confidence that he would be.' While he dealt with the cancer diagnosis, Sanders said he had plenty of friends and family check in on him. Among those who reached out was fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Randy Moss, who took a leave of absence from ESPN in early December after having surgery for his cancer. 'Randy Moss called me every other day to make sure I was straight,' Sanders said. 'Randy Moss prayed for me — he and his wife. Told me what I needed to be doing.' Sanders repeatedly stressed the importance of early detection. His cancer was discovered when he went for an annual CT scan as a precaution given his history with blood clots. 'We're lucky to have found it at this stage where I could say the word cure,' Kukreja said, 'because I don't use that word lightly as a cancer doctor.' The charismatic coach missed football camps in Boulder this summer amid reports that he's been ill. He returned to campus last week and announced on social media, 'Back and Feeling Great!' On Sunday, the production crew of 'Well Off Media,' which chronicles Sanders and the Buffaloes, posted a video on YouTube of the coach's first meeting with the team. Included is a scene dated May 9 in which Sanders said: 'I don't know if I'm ready mentally, emotionally. Last night was tough, yesterday was tough, because I had to make a will. That's not easy at all, to think that you may not be here.' Sanders used humor Monday to talk about drafting a will, saying it was a chance to rank his kids. Jokes aside, he added: 'You don't want to be a fool and leave and not have your business affairs in order.' Sanders has dealt with other health issues. Several of them have involved his left foot since having two toes amputated in 2021 because of blood clot issues while he was coaching at Jackson State. He missed Colorado's media day in 2023, his inaugural year, after a procedure to remove a blood clot from his right leg and another to straighten toes on his left foot. In March, Sanders signed a contract extension through the 2029 season. The Buffaloes kick off the season on Aug. 29 against Georgia Tech at Folsom Field. It will be the first season in quite some time that he hasn't coached one of his sons. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders was drafted by the Cleveland Browns while Shilo, a safety, is in camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes went 4-8 in his first season and 9-4 last season, with an appearance in the Alamo Bowl. They have big shoes to fill in replacing Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter. 'I never look down. I'm always looking up and I'm always trying to go get it,' Deion Sanders said. 'I want to be the best Prime I can be for everybody. For everybody.'
BBC News
2 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Coach Deion Sanders 'cured from cancer' after bladder surgery
American football coach Deion Sanders revealed he had surgery to remove his bladder following a cancer Sanders, coach of the University of Colorado Boulder football team, is now "cured from the cancer", one of his doctors said at a news conference operation occurred in May after the discovery of a tumour in his bladder as part of a routine health check up. Before the announcement, there had been media reports Mr Sanders was about to resign for health the two-time Super Bowl winner will remain as head coach for the upcoming collegiate football season. The tumour was "high grade" leading to a "high risk non-muscle bladder invasive cancer," his doctor Janet Kukreja, a urologist at the University of Colorado, said. The operation to remove the bladder was robot assisted, Dr Kukreja added. "I am pleased to report that the results from the surgery are that he is cured from the cancer," she if he had thought the diagnosis would end his coaching career, Mr Sanders said retiring was out of the question."I always knew I was going to coach again," he said. "It was never in my spirit, in my heart that God wouldn't allow me to coach again. [I] never thought like that." Coach Prime, as he is affectionately called, said the surgery was a "whole life change" and he was still coming to terms to his new life."I truly depend on Depend; I cannot control my bladder," he said referring to a brand of the adult of his sons posted a video online on Sunday in which Mr Sanders, sitting on a hospital bed, can been seen talking about his health challenges."Yesterday was tough," he says he in the video filmed in May, "because I had to make a will. That's not easy at all, to think that you may not be here.""Please get yourself checked out; especially African-American men," Mr Sanders advised. "Get checked out because this could have been a whole other gathering if I hadn't." Black Americans have the highest mortality rate for all cancers, according to the US National Cancer Sanders has had other health issues in the past and in 2021 had two toes on his left foot removed because of a blood becoming a coach, Mr Sanders had a successful career in the NFL, winning the Super Bowl with San Francisco 49ers in 1995 and with the Dallas Cowboys one year later. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in also previously played professional baseball and is the only person to have played in the Super Bowl and baseball's World Series.
