Doctor explains signs to watch for after Fearne Cotton tumour news

TV, radio and podcast presenter Fearne Cotton has said she will undergo an operation to remove two benign tumours from her jaw. A benign tumour is a mass of cells that are non-cancerous, tend to stay in one place and can be safely removed during surgery.

Fearne said: “I’ve got a benign tumour just in my jaw here, below my ear, another little tiny one above it. I’m very grateful they’re benign but they do need to come out because they’re on a nerve. So I’m gonna have that surgery, and then I’m gonna be resting to get better before Christmas.

“Not very good at resting, so wondering how that’s gonna go. But I’m feeling OK about it. I’m going into the operation feeling good and well.”

She said she had “felt a lump under my ear on my jawline a while ago now but this year noticed it was growing”. Fearne added: “Turns out it’s a benign tumour and another small one above it on the saliva gland. It’s obviously so weird that only a couple of months ago Davina told me about her tumour and then weeks later I was calling her having discovered mine.

“I’m not only lucky she’s a bloody good mate but also a beacon of light and positivity when it comes to this stuff.”

Around 9 in 10 tumours are benign, but it is important to be able to identify one in the first place. To help people identify a benign tumour, Dr Alasdair Scott, Science Director at Selph said: "A 'tumour' is simply a growth. Tumours can be benign or malignant. Benign tumours (such as colloid cysts) will not spread whereas malignant tumours have the ability to spread to other parts of the body. A 'cancer' is another term for malignant tumour.

"The commonest benign tumours are related to the skin and are familiar to many of us. Things like moles, sebaceous cysts, lipomas and dermatofibromas. These are simple skin lumps.

"A sebaceous cyst is a small lump in the skin, often the back or scalp. They affect about 1 in 5 people. They can become infected. They’re easily identified by the fact that they’re in the skin (i.e. the skin doesn’t move over them) and they have a little “punctum” at the top. Lipomas are lumps of fat sitting underneath the skin so the skin moves over them. They’re painless, soft, squidgy lumps. They affect about 1 in 50 people.

"Dermatofibromas are small brown lumps in the skin that often occur at the site of minor trauma - such as a shaving nick when shaving the legs. They’re raised, firm and painless. These are very common lumps but many people don’t report them so we don’t know exactly how common. Women get them more commonly than men.

"Benign non-skin lumps are also very common. For example, at least 1 in 5 of us have an adenoma (“polyp”) in the bowel, about 1 in 10 of us will develop an adenoma in our pituitary gland and about 1 in 10 women will have a benign breast tumour called a fibroadenoma. Often these cause no symptoms and are either picked up incidentally when looking for something else. Doctors even have a name for these incidental tumours - “incidentalomas”.

"In terms of malignant tumours, the commonest are again related to the skin. Basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma are all types of skin cancer. They can have quite a varied appearance but some have common features can include growth (i.e. they get larger over time), bleeding and sometimes being painful.

"The commonest are breast cancer in women (1 in 11) and prostate cancer in men (1 in 8), bowel cancer (1 in 15 men and 1 in 18 women) and lung cancer (1 in 17)."