Dolph Lundgren says a second opinion showed his kidney-cancer diagnosis was wrong: he actually had lung cancer. After years of ineffective treatment, he announced he was cancer-free in 2024; he also wrote that he had considered medical aid in dying.
Doctors removed a cancerous kidney tumor in 2015. Lundgren said scans every six months later found more tumors in 2020, six of which were removed. A liver tumor then grew to the size of a small lemon and was too large to remove surgically. He said systemic therapy caused diarrhea and substantial weight loss.
Lundgren wrote that his second-opinion oncologist, Alexandra Drakaki of UCLA Health, found a mutation common in lung cancer in the cancer cells; he said the new treatment made the tumors shrink. In his 2026 memoir, he described considering medical aid in dying while depressed and worried he might become too ill to act on his own. In September 2025, he told PEOPLE he felt well, had no evidence of disease and was back to working out.
