Giuliana Rancic, who announced back in October that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, will undergo a double mastectomy after doctors were unable to completely eradicate the cancer with lumpectomies.
The 36-year-old E! host appeared with husband Bill Rancic Monday on the Today Show and explained her reasons for taking a more drastic treatment path.
“For me, it was important to get the cancer out,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to do, just get it out.”
While Rancic could have chosen to undergo another lumptectomy combined with radiation therapy, she would have had to have a mammogram every six months to ensure the cancer had not returned.
“At the end,” she said, “what it came down to was just choosing to live and not looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
According to her doctors, a double mastectomy means that her cancer will have a less than 1 percent chance of returning.
Rancic credited her husband for his support throughout the decision-making process.
“Bill told me, ‘ I just need you around for the next 50 years, kid,” she recounted. “He said, ‘I don’t care about the physical results. I just want you around for another 50 years. I need you healthy. I need you as my wife. I need you as a mother to our kids.'”
