Alex Trebek Says He’s ‘Near Remission’

When Alex Trebek announced a few months ago that he had stage four pancreatic cancer, we were all pretty worried about him. It’s not a good diagnosis to get. But he’s been getting chemotherapy and he’s telling People that his doctors tell him he’s “near remission” and that some of his tumors have shrunk by 50%.

“It’s kind of mind-boggling,” the 78-year-old says, in PEOPLE’s new cover story. Although the cancer has a 9 percent survival rate, Trebek has been responding very well to chemotherapy. “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.”

This is really great news, and Trebek says that he credits the support he’s gotten from fans for his recovery.

“I’ve got a couple million people out there who have expressed their good thoughts, their positive energy directed towards me and their prayers,” he says. “I told the doctors, this has to be more than just the chemo, and they agreed it could very well be an important part of this.”

He adds, “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.”

I’m not religious, but the outpouring of love Trebek has gotten has to make this sort of thing easier to deal with. And we here at The Blemish are also hoping this means he’ll make a full recovery.