(CNN) Alex Trebek has shared a hopeful health update.

The "Jeopardy!" host -- who announced in March that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer -- told People magazine he's responding well to treatment.

So well, in fact, that the 78-year-old said he is in "near remission" according to his doctors. "It's kind of mind-boggling," Trebek said in the magazine's new cover story. "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 survival rate for those with Trebek's kind of cancer is 9% and he said news that he may be beating the odds left him emotional.

"But they were tears of joy, not tears of depression," Trebek said.

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