TV legend Dame Esther Rantzen has revealed she’s anxiously waiting for another scan so doctors can reveal the extent of her cancer.

The 85-year-old That’s Life icon said she was suffering from “scanxiety” after being put on experimental drugs to fight the killer disease.

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Dame Esther Rantzen was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2023Credit: Alamy

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Esther presented That’s Life for two decades
She said on Radio 4 after being asked “how are you?”  by PM host Evan Davis: “Well, I never quite know.

“I’m between scans, and there’s a condition we, all of us, who know too much about cancer or more than we want to know, condition called scanxiety.

“So as you catch me now, that’s what I’ve got, I’m waiting.”

Dame Esther was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in January 2023 and has been undergoing experimental medication, though her condition is not improving as of March 2025.

She had previously joined a Swiss assisted dying clinic, Dignitas, in late 2023, stating her desire for a peaceful death if her treatment failed.

The possibility of asbestos exposure at the BBC is being investigated as a potential cause for her cancer.

And she told Loose Women in June: “I thought I had a very, very short time [after diagnosis] and that’s why I quickly signed up to Dignitas so I could choose an assisted death if things got really rough.

“But they’ve got these amazing new drugs now which target the specific kind of cancer you’ve got, and I’ve had one of those drugs which lasted for quite some time.

“It’s not working now, but it did sometimes, so I’ve had this additional couple of years, which I certainly didn’t expect.

“Who knew I’d be 85, heavens.”

‘Don’t call me a murderer – I’m scared of being prosecuted over mum’s Dignitas decision’, Esther Rantzen’s daughter says

Dame Esther previously questioned whether her stage four lung cancer might have been caused by exposure to asbestos at the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios in West London, where she filmed That’s Life! for 21 years.

Speaking to The Times in 2023, Dame Esther said: “Some time in the late-Eighties or early-Nineties, workmen wearing white spacesuits arrived to take down walls and ceilings along the corridors where I wrote our scripts to remove the asbestos.

“This did not surprise any of us since my team had called our route to the canteen ‘asbestos alley’.”

The daughter of TV legend Esther admitted she’s worried about criminal prosecution over her mum’s decision to join Dignitas.

Rebecca Wilcox has said she is worried about being prosecuted if she supports her mother’s decision.

She says seeing her father die connected to tubes surrounded by nurses and beeping was painful and she doesn’t want to remember her mum like that.

Appearing on TalkTV’s Crosstalk, Rebecca pleaded with authorities to not make this part of her life any harder.

“If I said that, that’s legally murky, obviously in my head I never thought I would let her go alone to somewhere like that, but I’m a busy working mum I can’t leave my children to pop off to jail.

“Please, please don’t make it worse for me by accusing me of murdering her,” she says.

Instead, Rebecca has backed a change in regulation in the UK for assisted dying asking why it would be difficult to set up regulation.

“The fact is only three people a year get prosecuted. But the actual process of going through a court case at what is the worst time of my life so far.

“I will have to live without her and please, please don’t make it worse for me by accusing me of murdering her and making me go through what would be a terrifying legal process,” she says.

Esther is best known for presenting That’s Life for 21 years from 1973 to 1994.

The weekly show pulled in audiences of up to 20million – ratings unmatched by almost anything on TV today.

Esther fronted the series, which focused on funny items, consumer investigations and human-interest stories, for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994.

Founded in 1998, over 2,100 people have died with Dignitas’ help, in assisted suicides at home or at the society’s house near Zürich.

The Swiss society helps members with severe physical or mental illnesses, as well as the terminally ill, to end their own lives.

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Esther with her daughter Rebecca Wilcox

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Esther said she did not even believe that she would make it to her 83rd birthday after her diganosis