SAD NEWS: BBC Breakfast presenters Sally Nugent and Jon Kay PAUSE the show to deliver HEARTBREAKING NEWS about two guests and make an URGENT appeal

BBC Breakfast hosts Sally Nugent and Jon Kay spoke with guests Georgie Maynard and Tom Riley on Tuesday’s show, announcing the pair had both been diagnosed with brain tumours.

Before speaking with their guests via video link, Jon explained, “Now, a new campaign group formed by patients, their families, and their advocates is calling on the government to spend more time researching brain tumours and improve access to clinical trials.”

Sally continued, “More than 12,000 people are diagnosed each year with a primary brain tumour, including 900 children and young people.”

Jon went on, “They are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under the age of 40 in the UK,” as Sally added, “More than 5,400 people lose their lives to a brain tumour every year.”

Introducing their guests, Jon said, “We’re joined now by two of those campaigners, Georgie Maynard and Tom Riley, both of whom were diagnosed with brain tumours.

“Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Good to see the sun shining in central London. Georgie, do you want to explain, to start with, why this matters so much to you? Because it’s personal, isn’t it?”

Georgie went on to explain how people are diagnosed with the illness and the prognosis doctors gave her.

Speaking about how important it is, Georgie told Jon, “Yes, it is. I mean, what I find extraordinary about the situation is that you’re diagnosed with a GBM or glioblastoma for me.

“You’re told how long you have left to live. You’re not given, you know, oh, ‘you could try this, try this, or try this’. You’re told your life expectancy. It is very short.

“Mine is 12 to 18 months to live for [what is] the average age, it can get to 5 percent, it can get to five years. So we have set this up today over time, but to drive more interest, awareness, and attention into brain cancer, because we desperately need it. We haven’t had any real change in our treatment for decades and decades, and we need that to change.”

Turning to Tom, Sally continued, “And Tom, I know that your own diagnosis wasn’t straightforward. Just tell us what happened to you?”

Tom explained, “Well, in my situation, I was initially diagnosed after having a seizure at work, which is where it was discovered, but not immediately. It was only actually after I was sent home with a suspected hematoma that, a day later, I was called back by the hospital to be admitted and told that I had a brain tumor.

“And obviously that was quite shocking, but great to absolutely know and to be able to deal with it. But I think what the challenge is, and is why we brought this group together to start this campaign, is that there are so many disparities across the country in different health units, different hospitals.

“And you know, one of the things that we really want to push for is having an equal amount of knowledge, a high amount, ideally, every single unit, so no one is being misdiagnosed when they first have to go into the hospital.”

He went on to add, “Something needs to change.”