--- title: Jimmy Carter Discusses Cancer Diagnosis: Melanoma is on Brain description: Carter revealed that he has four spots of melanoma on his brain and will begin radiation Thursday. canonical: https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-20T14:29:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-14T02:43:17.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Jimmy Carter Reveals His Cancer Has Spread to the Brain og:description: He's starting radiation treatment Thursday og:url: https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6014ce113a0e468a/698860352dce010dc39e52d1/jimmy-carter-rosalyn.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Jimmy Carter - Rosalynn Carter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jimmy Carter Reveals His Cancer Has Spread to the Brain twitter:description: He's starting radiation treatment Thursday twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6014ce113a0e468a/698860352dce010dc39e52d1/jimmy-carter-rosalyn.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Jimmy Carter Says His Cancer Has Spread to the Brain  by [Tessa Berenson](/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 14, 2023 2:43 AM CUTPublished: Aug 20, 2015 2:29 PM CUT  Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, at a baseball game on Jun. 10, 2015, in Atlanta. Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, at a baseball game on Jun. 10, 2015, in Atlanta.John Bazemore—AP  by [Tessa Berenson](/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 14, 2023 2:43 AM CUTPublished: Aug 20, 2015 2:29 PM CUT President Jimmy Carter held a press conference Thursday to discuss his recent cancer diagnosis, revealing that he has melanoma in his brain. The cancer was initially discovered in early August on his liver. Carter said Thursday that the melanoma tumor on his liver was removed August 3rd, but subsequent MRIs found four, 2 millimeter large spots of the cancer on his brain. “I was surprisingly at ease,” Carter said of learning the diagnosis. “I’ve led a very wonderful life, an exciting, adventurous.. existence. So I was surprisingly at ease, much more so than my wife was. Now I’ll be prepared for anything that comes.” Carter will receive his first of four radiation treatments Thursday afternoon, and will also regularly be administered medication to boost his immune system. There will be follow-up scans to search for more instances of the cancer elsewhere in his body. He said he will scale back his commitments and involvements with The Carter Center, saying he will continue to work on fundraising and attend board meetings. “I can’t really anticipate how I’ll be feeling obviously, I’ll have to defer quite substantially to my doctors,” he said. When asked if he would have done anything differently looking back on his career, Carter said, “I wished I would have sent one more helicopter to rescue the hostages in Iran.” He was President during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. Carter, 90, was the 39th President of the United States. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/"},"headline":"Jimmy Carter Says His Cancer Has Spread to the Brain","datePublished":"2015-08-20T14:29:04.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-14T02:43:17.000Z","description":"Will begin radiation treatment on Thursday","url":"https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/","keywords":["Cancer","Jimmy Carter"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6014ce113a0e468a/698860352dce010dc39e52d1/jimmy-carter-rosalyn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6014ce113a0e468a/698860352dce010dc39e52d1/jimmy-carter-rosalyn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Jimmy Carter - Rosalynn Carter","caption":"Jimmy Carter - Rosalynn Carter","creditText":"John Bazemore—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4004649/jimmy-carter-melanoma-cancer/","name":"Jimmy Carter Says His Cancer Has Spread to the Brain"}}]}] ```