While pro gambler James Holzhauer rolls on well past $2 million in winnings on “Jeopardy,” host Alex Trebek has some winning news of his own: His Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is responding well to treatment. Exceptionally well, in fact.

“The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive result in their memory… some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent,” the 78-year-old told People of his “mind-boggling” chemotherapy results.

Trebek’s cancer, doctors said, is “near remission,” according to the magazine.

It’s an unexpected result, given that pancreatic cancer has a very low survival rate, and is considered largely incurable.


When he announced his diagnosis in March, Trebek said, “I’m going to fight this. And I’m going to keep working, and with the love and support of my family and friends, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.”

His prospects at the time weren’t good, as half of all Stage 4 patients die within a year of finding out they’re sick.

Trebek credited his surprising improvement to more than just the chemotherapy, which he said he’ll have to continue for several more rounds to hopefully push the cancer closer to remission.

“I’ve got a lot of love out there headed in my direction and a lot of prayer, and I will never ever minimize the value of that,” he told People.


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