ABC's Robin Roberts Has
Breast Cancer


ABC "Good Morning America" anchor and ASA Advisory Board Member Robin Roberts has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be undergoing surgery on Friday.

Roberts, 46, told viewers about her cancer on Tuesday morning's show.

"I am so blessed that I found this in the early stages and the prognosis is so promising that my doctor expects me to be flying planes and hanging on to submarines in the middle of the Atlantic and scaling the Mayan pyramids in no time," she said.

Roberts, who is co-anchor of "Good Morning America" with Diane Sawyer, said she examined herself and found a lump on her breast the same day she had done a report on former "GMA" movie critic Joel Siegel, who died of colon cancer last month. The network wouldn't say which breast was affected.

Roberts, who is single, said there is no history in her family of breast cancer.

She began her career in 1983 as a sports anchor and reporter for WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 1984, she moved to WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1986, she was sports anchor and reporter for WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tennessee. She was also a sports anchor and reporter at WAGA-TV in Atlanta, Georgia from 1988-1990. She joined ESPN as a sportscaster in February 1990, and still makes appearances for the network on occasion.

Roberts has been a contributor to ABC's morning program since 1995 and was the newsreader before being named in May 2005 as one of the show's anchors.