Doctor shares largest takeaway from Kate’s cancer diagnosis

CNN's Max Foster is live outside Buckingham Palace for us right now. Max, what else are you hearing from the palace tonight about Princess Catherine's condition? Not to mention the timing of this announcement. So we're not going be told exactly what form of cancer.

It is, the timing. She referred to it that this is about the kids. They she revealed today that she had major abdominal surgery, not just abdominal surgery. So she had to recover from that. Then the news that tests out of that surgery.

Showed that she had cancer. They needed to decompress that as a family. The kids have been at school until today. They've been trying. They didn't want the kids to have lots of news coverage whilst they were at school with all the other kids.

Speaking to their kids. So they wanted to wait until they left school, which happened today. So they were picked up today and they won't be having the TV's on tonight. This is all a bit about trying to make sense of what happened.

Start the treatment. She started chemo at the end of February, I'm told. And then trying to, you know, manage this for the kids as much as anything else. Once William and Kate can make sense of it and then present it to the kids.

And then try to protect them as much as possible from all this speculation online, which has been really hurtful for the family, as I understand it. But they were particularly worried about the kids finding out that way. And we now know why we weren't being told.

What the issue was and what she was suffering from in hospital. Max. Princess Catherine will now be undergoing chemotherapy at the same time as her father in law, King Charles. We don't know what kind of cancer.

Either one of them has. What kind of impact will this have on the monarchy? A huge impact. There are four senior royals, the king and queen and the prince and princess. The king is out of public action.

He's carrying out duties behind the scenes. Of course, we're seeing some images of him now. The princess is out of action indefinitely until the doctors clear her to go back to her diary of engagements. We don't know when that's going to be.

We only know that she's in the early stages of treatment and she's not going to be comfortable for some time going out. The priority for her is making sure her kids have normality as much as possible. So we've all been asked not to share.

Any images of them out and about. They're being very clear. She is going to be going to hospital. They are going to be out and about. They don't want people sharing those images, which is why they've been transparent, as transparent as they have with us today.

But you've basically just got the queen at the top fall out. Leading the charge, William is going to do what he can, but it's pretty clear that he's making his far family priority as well. Max Foster outside Buckingham Palace, thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN's Julia Chatterley and Julia. Princess Catherine's last public appearance came over Christmas. That was before she had this major abdominal surgery in January. Can you walk us through how all of this has unfolded.

In recent weeks? Hey, Josh, I can. Jake. Sorry, I can. Christmas, Christmas Day. Brits always watch them at their church service. We saw her looking healthy, vibrant, nothing wrong. Then we didn't see her for three weeks.

Unusual. But nothing to cause alarm. Then comes January the 17th, in fact, and we got a release from Kensington Palace. A statement on social media saying she'd returned to hospital for planned abdominal surgery.

That the procedure was successful. But Kate would be in hospital for two weeks, and it was that two weeks that set off, I think, alarm bells and began the wild speculation that we've now been talking about for weeks.

About what was wrong with Kate and what might be happening January 29, the next important date. She was been discharged from hospital, but we didn't see her. She managed to avoid any press and any cameras at that stage. Then March the fourth, we saw her in a car with her mother.

But again, there was concerns that perhaps this wasn't her more speculation about what was going on. Then a brief period till March 10th where Kensington Palace released that Mother's Day photograph. Mother's Day in the U.K., March the 10th of her and her three children.

But within hours, there was a kill notice issue due to concerns that it had been heavily doctored. The next day, a personal message from Princess Kate herself saying, look, she's an amateur photographer, that she tinkered with that photograph.

And she apologized. Strange, again, raising more concerns and conspiracy theories. Then last weekend, the media shared a video of what was and appeared to be Kate and William. Kate looking very healthy,.

Vibrant, vivacious, walking at a local farm near where they're living. So, again, that perhaps should have addressed some of the concerns about her health and the situation. It didn't. Fast forward to today.

And now all that wild speculation has resulted in what we heard today, of course, and that's a sad cancer diagnosis. Julia, what did you make of how Princess Catherine decided to make this announcement on video by herself with this message.

That was personal and emotional understanding? I think she showed great strength. I think she could have sat there, quite rightly, with her husband, with Prince William, providing support. She chose not to do that. I think you could hear the emotion in her voice.

She managed to be and I said it already, both regal but also vulnerable in the message that she shared. And I think for anybody whose lives been touched by cancer, they understand the challenge that she's facing, the challenge of telling the children,.

Of trying to protect the children. And I think even in this statement, she showed that she's a princess through and through by caring in the end more about other people that are also suffering this, rather than just focusing perhaps on herself,.

On her own family's situation. So very moving, Jake, I'd say. All right, Julian, generally, thank you so much. Joining us now to discuss the medical aspect of this. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, what's your biggest takeaway from what we heard from.

Princess Catherine today? I think the biggest takeaway, obviously, is the headline that she has cancer. But that, you know, that we don't know what kind of cancer, as you've heard, we don't know the stage of cancer. So there is a significant.

Piece of information. But there's also a lot we don't know. We did get a better sense of the timeline. And you were talking about this with Julia a little bit, but let me just put this up again, Jake. Just so you know, a medical standpoint,.

It sounds like there was concern from the start. We're hearing what we're hearing today. But even from the start, they said, look, she's going to be it's going be a long recovery. Even when they admitted to the hospital, they said it's going be at least two weeks in the hospital,.

Which is a long time. And then we know that about a month after she was discharged from the hospitals, when she started what they call preventative chemotherapy, that's what we said in the statement. It's more of an adjuvant chemotherapy. This idea.

That the operation was performed. We now know that it's cancer. We have to assume that there are some cancer cells that are still remaining. So we're giving chemotherapy. So we we still don't know, Jake, what it is. We don't know the stage that it is,.

But it sounds like it's obviously something that they're being aggressive about and that they have had concern about for for some time. Jake. How does a cancer diagnosis work in this situation? I mean, we know she had abdominal surgery, major.

Abdominal surgery, two surgeons taking samples for further testing. Yeah, I think I think that's that's exactly right. And again, that's the part of it when you ask me what stands out the most. This is the part that doesn't quite fit because.

Going back to the middle of January, there was obviously significant concern. You wouldn't just do sort of exploratory surgery, looking for cancer. I think there was there was a significant concern. So it sounds like it then got confirmed that this was cancer.

They weren't sure, maybe initially, but it got confirmed by by looking at those samples. This is, say, Jake, under the microscope after the operation and performed. And then it might be some time before you'd actually start chemotherapy,.

Not allowing someone to heal, for example, from the operation. That was about a month in between the time she was discharged and she started that therapy. And she's a Princess Catherine. She's 42 years old. She's had three children. How prevalent are cancer diagnoses.

In women her age? They're more prevalent in women, her age versus men. Her age, but a lot less prevalent than in women who are older. One type of cancer that we've been hearing a lot more.

About starting in younger people, it's colorectal cancer. So much so, Jake. And you probably know this, but the standard age of screening that was recommended as have long been 50 years old, but organizations came out and said it probably should be 45.

Because we're seeing more and more of these types of cancers in younger people, and that's men, men or women alike, Jake. And again, we don't know. I just want to be clear. We don't know what kind of cancer this is, but there are certain cancers.

That we typically thought of happening in older people that now happen in younger people over the last several decades.

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