BBC News presenter reveals she has blood cancer

BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri has announced she is living with polycythaemia vera, a rare form of blood cancer. She said she wanted to share her diagnosis to raise awareness about the condition. Moshiri, 49, described her experience, noting that it has been two years since her diagnosis and she has begun to understand the illness and how it affects her life. "It's been 2 years since my diagnosis and I've felt that I've started to recognize the illness a batch amended and the mode it affects my life. I've got a grip connected it to a grade now, truthful I felt it was truly important to rise awareness," the 49-year-old said. "I'm going to person to walk the remainder of my beingness being treated for this," she added. Moshiri was diagnosed in November 2024 with polycythaemia vera, a condition in which the body produces too many red blood cells, making the blood thicker than normal. This increases the risk of blood clots that can lead to stroke, heart attack or deep vein thrombosis. Symptoms may include headaches, confusion, dizziness and blurred vision. "I was told by my advisor that I person this incurable humor cancer," she said. "Mostly I had nary symptoms and that's 1 of the problems with this disease." "The lone crushed excavation was caught was due to the fact that my GP was truthful fastidious successful the mode she did my regular humor tests and instantly sent them for further diagnosis." As part of her initial treatment, Moshiri underwent several "debilitating" hour‑long venesection sessions. "In astir a abstraction of 5 months, I had venesection 7 oregon 8 times. So you tin ideate my robust levels deed the level and I felt adjacent much exhausted," she said. "After a portion I started feeling highly unwell and tired. I started losing my hair, I got itchy each implicit my body, but the main grounds was fatigue." Later she was able to start interferon immunotherapy through the NHS, and after some adjustments she says her situation has improved. "I've lone needed 1 venosection successful astir 15 months, truthful that's been truly good. The past mates of months person been amended than the past 2 years," she said. "I deliberation it's truly important radical recognize that this humor crab is incurable but it's manageable with the close attraction and you tin pb a comparatively steadfast life." "It's conscionable a question of uncovering the close attraction and making definite it works for you." She admits she is "not the idiosyncratic I was 2 years ago" but says she feels "much better". In a small number of cases, polycythaemia vera can progress to myelofibrosis or, more rarely, to acute myeloid leukaemia, according to Blood Cancer UK, which funds research into blood cancers.