Tina Knowles reveals she was diagnosed with breast cancer: reports

HOUSTON - Tina Knowles, mother to Grammy-winning artists Beyoncé and Solange, revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2024, according to multiple reports.

Tina Knowles breast cancer diagnosis

Knowles revealed to PEOPLE Magazine when she found out about the life-changing discovery. Doctors told the mother she had stage 1 breast cancer in her left breast.

According to Knowles, she missed getting her scheduled mammogram. She told PEOPLE her appointment was canceled when COVID happened and the doctors said they would call her when they got back to testing, so she thought she had done it.

Her breast cancer journey has her encouraging women to keep up with mammogram screenings to get detection early.

After having the tumor removed through surgery, Knowles told PEOPLE she is cancer-free.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on cancer diagnosis

Dig deeper:

The Associated Press reports that cancer screenings were postponed for a lot of Americans during 2020 because of COVID. A large portion of United States cancers were caught at later, harder to treat stages.

However, deaths related to cancer are on the decline and reports show there weren't any big shifts in late diagnoses.

"It is very reassuring," said lead author Recinda Sherman of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. "So far, we haven’t seen an excess of late-stage diagnoses," which makes it unlikely that there will be higher cancer death rates tied to the pandemic.

 New cancer cases returned to pre-pandemic level in 2021, after a drop in 2020, the AP said.

"We didn’t see any notable shifts," Sherman said. "So it’s really unlikely that people with aggressive diseases were not diagnosed during that time period."