Washington – Potential presidential candidate Fred Thomp son, known to millions of “Law & Order” viewers as a gruff district attorney, revealed on Wednesday that he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer, nearly three years ago.
Thompson, 64, said he is in remission and never even felt ill from a type of lymphoma that is very slow-growing and probably not life-threatening. The Tennessee Republican was prompted to make the disclosure on the Fox News Channel and ABC Radio because he is thinking about running for president.
“I know it’s not a big deal, as far as my health is concerned, as much as a person can know about things like that,” Thompson said. “But other people have the right to look at it and weigh in, and I have a need to factor that into my decision in terms of the reaction that I get about it.”
Thompson’s physician said he encourages such patients not to limit their activities, even if that includes a bid for the White House.
“They can lead a normal life. They can travel. They can work. They can possibly be president of the United States,” Dr. Bruce Cheson, hematology chief at Georgetown University Hospital, told reporters at an afternoon news conference.
Thompson, who plays district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC’s long-running drama “Law and Order,” was diagnosed after a doctor found “a little bump in my neck” during a routine physical about 2 1/2 years ago, he said.
The bump, under his left jaw, turned out to be an indolent form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one that tends to respond well to treatment, he said.
Lymphoma is an immune-system cancer that strikes more than 71,000 people, killing more than 19,000 each year in the United States.
Overall, the five-year survival rate for the non-Hodgkin’s group of lymphomas is 63 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
But patients with indolent lymphoma tend to live many years.
The former senator said his cancer is “literally irrelevant in terms of my daily routine.” He sometimes has 14-hour days, working out three times a week, often filling in for ABC Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey in the morning and taping “Law & Order” in the afternoon.
“So my life goes on as normal,” he said. “Nobody knows about the future, of course, but as much as the doctors can tell … it should not be a factor.”
“Some lymphomas are very aggressive, but people with slow- growing types, like Sen. Thompson’s, more often die from natural causes associated with old age, rather than from the disease,” said Cheson.
Thompson was elected to the Senate in 1994 to fill the seat of Al Gore and easily won re-election in 1996, but after his daughter died of a heart attack in 2002, he announced he would not seek another term.
Thompson, who is divorced, married his second wife, Jeri Kehn, in 2002. Thompson has two young children at home, including a 4-month-old son, and has two older children.
