In January 2022, Florent Pagny has canceled his tour explaining in a video that he had just been diagnosed with a cancerous lung tumor. Since then, he has continued to keep the public informed of his state of health. In the last episode of “Sept à Huit” broadcast on Sunday March 5 on TF1, the singer talks regarding his cancer, which is far from behind him.
From a tumor the size of a kiwi fruit to remission
In June 2022, a few months following the announcement of his cancer, Florent Pagny learned that he was in remission.
He then explained: “The first time, it was almost as big as a kiwi, following two chemos I had a hazelnut. Then I still have them four chemos and a month and a half of rays (radiotherapy). I had confirmation yesterday, apparently, all the bad cells are dead, the tumor is completely gone.“
At this time, the singer is preparing to follow a year of immunotherapy. This last one is “a therapeutic approach that acts on a patient’s immune system to fight their disease. In the case of cancer, it does not attack not directly to the tumorbut stimulates the immune cells involved in its recognition and destruction”, explains Inserm.
“There are always real possibilities of relapses”
Almost six months later, at the end of November, while Florent Pagny is in New York, whitish spots are observed during his examinations. Despite everything, the singer assures go “very well”. He specifies: “It is not a recurrence, because there is no infection, it would rather be scars due to the rays”.
The 60-year-old then decides to interrupt his immunotherapy in order to go and rest in Patagonia and finally be able to get on with life following all this intense time. But even following a remission, it is always possible to have a recurrence. “There are always real possibilities of relapses, they come in all their forms.“, confides the singer.
“I would have preferred to say everything is fine, but it is not”
Indeed, in January 2023, a few months following stopping his treatment, he began to experience worrying symptoms. Among them, one “huge coughing fit” pushes him to go to Buenos Aires to take exams.
These latter turn out to be pretty bad. “The images aren’t terrible, so in three days I’m going back to Paris to see what’s going on,” explains Florent Pagny. On his return to France, he will have to pass additional examinations, including a biopsy. “There is a ganglion that appeared”, he confides, specifying that it is a ganglion with risk of metastasis. “I would have preferred to say everything is fine, but that’s not the case,” adds the sixty-something.
He also believes that stopping his treatment had a role in the risk of cancer recurrence. “If I had been in France for the last five months maybe I wouldn’t have this lymph node, if I had followed the planned program. It’s kinda my fault“, confides the singer. He concludes: “I didn’t do the immunotherapy treatment so I have to get back to it quickly“.
