CNN’s Sara Sidner reveals she is being treated for stage three breast cancer

CNN anchor Sara Sidner told viewers that she is undergoing treatment for stage three breast cancer while continuing her duties at the network.

In a segment on CNN News Central, Sidner fought back tears as she recounted her experiences.

“I have never been sick a day in my life. I don’t smoke. I drink little. Breast cancer does not run in my family,” she said. “And yet here I am with stage three breast cancer. It’s hard to say.”

She said she is in her second month of chemotherapy and will undergo radiation and a double mastectomy.

“Stage three is no longer a death sentence for the vast majority of women, but here’s the reality that really shocked my system when I started researching more about breast cancer, something I never knew before this diagnosis. If you are a black woman, you are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than your white counterparts. Forty-one percent. So to all my black, white and brown sisters out there: please, for God’s sake, get your mammogram every year. Do your self-examinations. Try to catch it before I did.

Sidner revealed her diagnosis in an interview with People, in which she said: “I just made a decision. I say, ‘No, you’re going to survive and stop doing that and you’re going to do everything you can to survive this period.’ And I’ve been so much happier in my life since then…I mean happier than before I had cancer.”

Sidner also serves as a senior national correspondent and has continued to work through her treatments. She co-hosted the station’s New Year’s Eve coverage. Before her biopsy, she traveled to Israel to cover the war with Hamas.

“When I saw the suffering I was in and saw how people still come through the worst thing that’s ever happened to them with grace and kindness, I was overwhelmed by their resilience,” Sidner told People. “In a strange way, it helped me develop my own perspective on what I was facing.”

Sidner began co-hosting CNN News Central’s Morning Edition after debuting in April. She was previously an international correspondent.