BREAKING NEWS: BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire reveals she has been diagnosed with breast cancer

Victoria Derbyshire confirmed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer
46-year-old BBC presenter broke the news to her 49,500 Twitter followers
Mother-of-two said she will undergo a mastectomy in the weeks to come
However, said she would continue to host news programme when she can

PUBLISHED: 20:34, 19 August 2015 | UPDATED: 21:36, 19 August 2015

BBC presenter and mother-of-two Victoria Derbyshire, 46 (pictured last year), has revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo a mastectomy in the weeks to come

BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo a mastectomy within a matter of weeks.

The mother-of-two disclosed the news on Twitter this evening, telling her 49,500 followers that she will continue to front her news programme during treatment where possible.

Miss Derbyshire, 46, who currently hosts a daily news and current affairs programme on BBC Two and has previously worked on Radio 5 Live, also praised medical staff for their support.

She was immediately inundated with messages of support from fans and colleagues, wishing her a speedy recovery.

Announcing the news, Miss Derbyshire tweeted: 'Have been diagnosed with breast cancer & am having a mastectomy in a few wks. Family, friends, work & NHS staff are being brilliant. Will be doing the programme as much as possible during treatment in the months ahead.'

Responding to the news, a spokesman for the BBC said: 'We wish Victoria a full and speedy recovery and look forward to having her back full time on the programme as soon as possible.'

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK and can be treated if caught early, according to the NHS.

Just under 50,000 women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2011, with eight out of 10 who get the disease aged over 50.

In the UK, the chance of developing breast cancer before the age of 30 is roughly 0.05 per cent (one in 2,000). It goes up to two per cent (one in 50) before the age of 50 and 7.7 per cent (one in 13) before the age of 70.

However, it is after the age of 70 that the risk is highest. A third of all incidences of breast cancer occur in women aged over 70.

Overall, a woman living in the UK has a 12 per cent chance of getting breast cancer during her lifetime. It's the same in the US.

Educated at Bury Grammar School before studying English at the University of Liverpool, Miss Derbyshire got her first break in journalism working as local radio reporter.

She later co-presented the 5 Live breakfast show alongside Julian Worricker, who was later replaced by Nicky Campbell.

Never far from controversy, it emerged that she had moved in with BBC editor Mark Sandell, who was said to have left his wife Fi Glover, another presenter at the corporation, after just two years of marriage.

Her much-heralded switch to a regular TV current affairs show, simply called Victoria Derbyshire, has consistently struggled to attract viewers, despite significant efforts at promotion by the BBC.

The ‘digital first’ programme only attracted an audience of 39,000 earlier this year, and BBC boss James Harding was mocked after saying it had been a success but only ‘by the standards we set it’.

Miss Derbyshire, who currently hosts a daily news and current affairs programme on the BBC, disclosed her news on Twitter tonight, telling her 49,500 followers that she would continue to front the show where possible

A spokesman for the BBC said: 'We wish Victoria a full & speedy recovery & look forward to having her back full time as soon as possible.' Pictured: Victoria hosting her news and current affairs programme on the BBC

Earlier this year, Miss Derbyshire, who has two children with Sandell, revealed her family had dealt with the fallout of Sandell being accused of bullying at the BBC.

Bosses began an investigation into the 53-year-old, who has worked at the Corporation for 25 years, more than a year ago after claims he bullied and sexually harassed a member of staff. Separately, he was investigated over expenses.

Sandell, a senior BBC editor who was previously married to fellow broadcaster Fi Glover, returned to work after successfully appealing against his dismissal following the investigation into bullying.

At the time, Miss Derbyshire told Radio Times magazine: 'It has been pretty stressful but we have moved on. We're fine.'

Asked whether she still felt angry with the BBC about what happened, she said: 'Only because of the time it took. It took a long time.'

Last year, Miss Derbyshire revealed that behind her success lies a difficult childhood which gave her the courage to 'be bold to anyone'.

Have been diagnosed with breast cancer & am having a mastectomy in a few wks. Family, friends, work & NHS staff are being brilliant

Victoria Derbyshire

She claimed in an article in The Guardian that her father Anthony was an 'aggressive' man who abused her, her mother and her younger brother and sister.

She said: 'It was very much us four against him. He was aggressive and violent and not loving in any way. Not like a father should be.'

She described rushing to make him a cup of tea after work or 'there would be all hell to pay', and slipping her mother's Valium into his tea hoping to 'calm him down'.

Asked if the tactic worked, she said: 'I didn't monitor it. I should have taken notes: 'Today, one Valium, no row; today, no Valium, he threw a pan at mum's head.'

She described her mother Pauline, 74, as 'absolutely brilliant'. The siblings tried to protect her, she claimed, by sitting at the top of the stairs to listen to parental rows.

She said: '[We were] thinking 'we don't know what to do, but we'll stay awake because if we're awake, at least that is somehow going to protect her because we'll know what is happening'. Though I don't know what we thought we'd do with the information.'

Her parents divorced in 1985 when she was 17 - a moment she called a 'liberation' - and her mother remarried her 'amazing' late stepfather Des Whitehead.

In the interview with The Guardian last month, Miss Derbyshire said: 'My attitude now is that I have no feelings towards him, because I don't want to waste any energy on him.

'I think when I first had children, that's when I really understood the depths to which he had sunk - your own child, how can you hit them?'

Victoria Derbyshire (pictured alongside Andrew Pierce on 'Lorraine Live' in 2013) said she will undergo a mastectomy in the weeks to come but said she will continue to host her news programme as much as possible

Miss Derbyshire (pictured left in June and right in January) was immediately inundated with messages of support from fans and colleagues, wishing her a speedy recovery after disclosing the news on Twitter tonight

She put her fearless style - which has seen her grill her boss, former 5 Live controller Adrian Van Klaveren, and put former Justice Secretary Ken Clarke on the spot over his views on rape victims - down to resilience she learnt growing up.

'I remember being bold to my father and feeling I was sticking up for myself and for us, and so, in comparison to that, I think I can be bold to anyone,' she said.

Mr Derbyshire, 77, insisted he had never hit his children and said their childhood in an eight-bedroom Tudor mansion in Lancashire, now worth £2.5million, was 'brilliant'.

He admits striking his ex-wife, claiming she was aggressive to him.

He said: 'She implies she was dragged up in a tough northern environment - rubbish. She was brought up in the lap of luxury: elocution lessons, dance lessons, private school.'

Mr Derbyshire, a retired director of several companies, added: 'I was working away a lot, sometimes at weekends.

'When I went home I just wanted peace and quiet. I used to talk to them reasonably when they did something wrong, not shout and rave at them as she says. I wasn't all cuddly and that sort of thing, but I was loving in the sense I provided for them and worked very, very hard to give them everything.'

THE MOST COMMON CANCER IN BRITAIN: ONE IN 50 WOMEN IN 40S AT RISK

Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease in the UK (file picture, posed by models)

Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease in the UK, with one in every fifty women in their forties at risk.

The NHS says 50,000 women are diagnosed with the disease every year, and 12,000 a year die with the disease.

The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is 1 in 8 for women in the UK.

Some 80 per cent of sufferers are 50 or over and nearly a quarter over 75.

But younger women, and some men, do develop breast cancer, and the NHS is considering lowering the age it recommends women have screenings from 50 to 47.

Public Health England figures show that in 2008, women between 40 and 49 years had a one in fifty chance of developing the disease, while 1 in 2,000 women under 29 is at risk.

Those between 50 and 59 are at significantly higher risk, with one in every twenty-two being diagnosed.

The number of women affected by breast cancer has grown 5.5 per cent in the last decade, and experts know that obesity and alcohol are two of the major risk factors linked to breast tumours.

Drinking just one glass of wine a day increases the chance of developing the disease by an estimated 6 per cent, as alcohol increases oestrogen levels, which are known to promote breast cancer.

But genetic factors are also involved. Women who have the BRCA gene – including actress Angelina Jolie - are particularly at risk.

Just as prevalence of the disease has increased in recent years, survival rates have also improved.

Some 87 per cent of women survive for five years after receiving a diagnosis, thanks to GPs and doctors getting better at spotting the signs.

The earlier the disease is spotted the better, as the simplest way of treating the disease is to operate, removing the cancer. Almost all deaths from breast cancer occur when it has spread to other parts of the body which are harder to treat.

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are also effective against the disease, and exciting new treatments which harness the body’s immune system and direct it against the cancer are currently in development.

KATCHING MY I

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Wednesday, 19 August 2015