Tony Gwynn diagnosed with cancer

Andre · #1 10-09-2010, 01:51 PM

SAN DIEGO -- Tony Gwynn, the prolific-hitting Hall of Fame outfielder who spent his entire 20-year career with the Padres, has been diagnosed with cancer of a salivary gland.

Gwynn, a 15-time All-Star voted into the Hall in the first year he was eligible in 2007, has had three procedures since 1997 to remove non-cancerous tumors to the largest salivary gland, he told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

“
They say this is a slow moving but aggressive form of cancer. I'm going to be aggressive and not slow moving in treating this.
”
-- Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn
But the latest operation last month discovered a malignant growth, he said.

"They took out three lymph nodes and did all the tests and the results showed cancer in the parotid," Gwynn told the newspaper Friday.

The 50-year-old Gwynn faces radiation and chemotherapy treatments. He says doctors have told him they feel they caught the cancer early and "there was not much of it there."

"They say this is a slow moving but aggressive form of cancer," Gwynn told the Union-Tribune from his Poway home. "I'm going to be aggressive and not slow moving in treating this."

Gwynn said he faces up to two months of radiation treatments, which he will undergo five times a week. He said he will have chemotherapy treatments once a week.

"I go in Monday for a consultation and I hope to immediately begin the treatments," Gwynn told the newspaper.

Gwynn said he thought the cancer was most likely related to his use of chewing tobacco throughout his career.

"I haven't discussed that with the doctors yet, but I'm thinking it's related to dipping," said Gwynn, who said he had failed to drop the habit despite the previous mouth procedures.