Sara Sidner to Undergo Double Mastectomy Amid Breast Cancer Battle

CNN anchor Sara Sidner is set to undergo a double mastectomy.

Sidner, 51, told viewers on Tuesday that she will have the surgery on Wednesday and will be away for the next few weeks to recover. Despite her breast cancer battle, Sidner has upheld her network duties all year.

"What I have learned so far in my cancer journey is treating it is more of a marathon than a sprint," Sidner shared on CNN. "After five months of chemo, I have not yet become cancer free. The next phase is a double mastectomy."

Sidner did not specify when she would return to the CNN anchor desk. But co-anchor Kate Bolduan noted, "We cannot wait for you to get back." Sidner, Bolduan and John Berman have co-anchored CNN News Central since April 2023.

"A 2016 study found that the 10-year survival rate for a bilateral mastectomy is 90.3 percent," Sidner noted. "I like those odds, so I am going under the knife tomorrow and will be out recovering for a few weeks."

In January, Sidner closed CNN News Central by revealing her stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis.

The correspondent fought back tears as she explained how she's pushing through the health battle.

"I have never been sick a day in my life. I don't smoke. I rarely drink. Breast cancer does not run in my family," she said in an emotional on-air moment at the time. "And yet here I am with stage 3 breast cancer. It is hard to say out loud."

She also pleaded with viewers to be proactive to prevent a similar health struggle.

"If you happen to be a Black woman, you are 41 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than your white counterparts," she said. "Forty-one percent. So to all my sisters, Black and white and brown out there, please for the love of God get your mammogram every single year. Do your self-exams. Try to catch it before I did."

She ended her message by sharing the unexpected part of her cancer.

"Now here is something I could never, ever have predicted would happen to me," Sidner said as she began to cry. "I have thanked cancer for choosing me. I'm learning that no matter what hell we go through in life, that I am still madly in love with this life and just being alive feels really different for me now."

She continued, "I am happier because I don't stress about foolish little things that used to annoy me. And now every single day that I breathe another breath, I can celebrate that I am still here with you, I am here with my co-anchors, my colleagues, my family and I can love and cry and laugh and hope. And that, my dear friends, is enough."

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