Dolph Lundgren is opening up about his eight-year struggle with cancer.
Lundgren, 65, said doctors found a tumor in his kidney and he had it removed in Los Angeles in 2015. A biopsy determined it was cancerous. Subsequent scans revealed everything was fine for five years, but he thought he may have acid reflux when he was in Sweden in 2020, prompting him to have an MRI.
“They found that there were a few more tumors around that area,” he said May 10 on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger."
Every year, more than 43,000 men and 25,000 women are diagnosed with kidney and renal pelvis cancers annually, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 9,000 men and 5,000 women die from them.
Doctors removed six tumors and the "Rocky IV" star hoped to return to making movies, but was blindsided to learn he was still not healthy.
“There’s a picture there I was going to direct and star in that was starting in the fall," he said. "The doctor called me when I was in Alabama ready to shoot and said they found one more tumor in the liver. So, I was like, ‘Oh, s---, OK.’ At that point it started to hit me that this is kind of something serious.”
The "Expendables" actor was told the tumor had grown to the size “of a small lemon” that was too big to remove surgically, prompting him to try “systemic therapy,” which led to side effects, including diarrhea and weight loss.
“His mouth got really sore,” fiancée Emma Krokdal said. “His hands got sore, feet, and he couldn’t eat anything warm, anything cold, anything spicy. So that was a struggle to get food down, so he kept losing weight.”
Lundgren said he had signed on to star in sequels for “The Expendables” and “Aquaman” that would shoot in 2021. Krokdal, though, said his health had deteriorated after meeting with a doctor in London.
“We realized it was a lot worse than we thought,” she said. “He started talking about all these different tumors in the lung and the stomach and the spine, outside the kidneys.”
Lundgren said the doctor told him he only had a short time to live.
“He started saying these things like, ‘You should probably take a break and spend more time with your family,’ and so forth," he said. "So I kind of asked him, ‘How long do you think I’ve got left,’ and he said, ‘Two or three years,’ but I could tell in his voice that he probably thought it was less.”
Lundgren braced himself for the possibility he would die.
“I thought it was it, for sure,” he said. “You kind of look at your life and going, ‘I had a great life. I’ve had a freaking great life. I’ve lived five lifetimes in one already’ ... It wasn’t like I was bitter about it. It was just I feel sorry for my kids, my fiancée and people around you.”
Lundgren ultimately decided to seek a second opinion from oncologist and hematologist Dr. Alexandra Drakaki.
“He was lucky because we did find a mutation that is actually common in lung cancer and I was able to get off-label use for his kidney cancer, treating (it) as if it was lung (cancer),” she said.
“If I had gone on the other treatment, I’d have had about three to four months left,” Lundgren said. “I couldn’t believe that it would be that radical of a difference — that within three months, things were shrinking by 20, 30%.”
Lundgren said last year proved to be a tipping point.
“So 2022 was basically watching these medications do their thing and finally things had shrunk into about 90%. Now I’m in the process of taking out the remaining scar tissue of these tumors.”
Drakaki says there are certain parts of his body that are responding “really well” and that some lesions can no longer be seen, which is “above expectations.” She also says she has a plan for his treatment.
“My hope and goal is to try and keep him on these medications as long as possible and then as the future and the science is changing, just keep getting biopsies as things within his body to try to identify newer targets for treatment.”