Revealed: The stars who defied the odds, after it emerged Slade’s Noddy Holder, 77, was given six months to live… FIVE years ago

• Slade star Noddy Holder started a new trial of chemotherapy in Manchester
• He reveals the treatment helped him overcome his ‘devastating’ prognoses

Slade frontman Noddy Holder was given just six months to live when diagnosed with throat cancer five years ago, it emerged this week.

Suzan Price, 57, detailed Noddy’s secret health battle in an emotional piece written for Great British Life.

She told how Noddy, 77, underwent a new trial of chemotherapy which has helped to keep him alive.

But he is not the only celebrity to have defied the odds following a shock diagnosis. Here, MailOnline shares the stories of the others… 

Suzan Price, 57, detailed her husband Noddy Holder’s secret health battle in an emotional piece written for Great British Life this week. She told how Noddy, 77, underwent a new trial of chemotherapy which has helped to keep him alive

Noddy Holder

Ms Price said the news that her husband has oesophageal cancer ‘came as a total bombshell’. When he was diagnosed, he was only given six months to live.

The cancer affects the long tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach. 

Difficulty swallowing, heartburn that doesn’t go away and pain in the throat are tell-tale signs, according to Cancer Research UK. 

The star started a new trial of chemotherapy at The Christie Hospital in Manchester, which has helped him stay alive.  

Ms Price said the Merry Xmas Everybody singer has managed to keep a positive outlook despite his health woes.

He was even able to perform this summer after being invited on stage by Cheshire musician Tom Seals. 

Iconic: Noddy is best known for being the frontman of Slade who earned themselves six UK Number One singles during their 25-year career

After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in the 1960s at the age of 21, Stephen Hawking was given just a few years to live. Yet against all odds Professor Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age. He died in 2018 at his home in Cambridge

Stephen Hawking 

Stephen Hawking was one of the world’s most acclaimed cosmologists, a medical miracle, and probably the galaxy’s most unlikely superstar celebrity.

After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in the 1960s at the age of 21, he was given just a few years to live.

Yet against all odds Professor Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age. He died in 2018 at his home in Cambridge.

Despite being wheelchair-bound, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser, he wrote a plethora of scientific papers that earned him comparisons with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

At the same time he embraced popular culture with enthusiasm and humour, appearing in TV cartoon The Simpsons, starring in Star Trek and providing the voice-over for a British Telecom commercial that was later sampled on rock band Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell album.

His rise to fame and relationship with his first wife, Jane, was dramatised in a 2014 film, The Theory Of Everything, in which Eddie Redmayne put in an Oscar-winning performance as the physicist battling with a devastating illness.

He was best known for his work on black holes, the mysterious infinitely dense regions of compressed matter where the normal laws of physics break down, which dominated the whole of his academic life.

ALS is a rare condition that progressively damages parts of the nervous system.

It occurs when specialist nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord called motor neurons stop working properly — known as neurodegeneration.

Normally, the life expectancy of the disease is about three to 10 years. But Hawkins’s diaphragm and swallowing muscles remained intact until the end of his life.

Aged just 25, Lance Armstrong was told his testicular cancer had spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. The athlete was given a 40 per cent chance of living after his diagnosis. The now 52-year-old underwent surgery to remove the malignant testicle and had chemotherapy to destroy secondary tumours. He also had a six-hour operation to remove two brain tumours

Lance Armstrong 

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996.

Aged just 25, the professional cyclist was told the cancer had spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. 

The athlete was given a 40 per cent chance of living after his diagnosis. 

The now 52-year-old underwent surgery to remove the malignant testicle and had chemotherapy to destroy secondary tumours. He also had a six-hour operation to remove two brain tumours. 

He founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation after his own battle with testicular cancer in 1997. 

But Armstrong was removed from the charity in November 2012, just one month after the US Anti-Doping Agency hit him with a lifetime competition ban and he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after it was revealed he was at the heart of a sophisticated doping programme.

The 2020 documentary ‘Lance’ shed light on his cheating and revealed he was doping from the age of 21. 

Throat cancer: What is it, how is it treated and what is the survival rate? 

What is it? 

Throat cancer is a general term that describes several different types of cancer that start in the throat (pharynx) or voice box (larynx). 

Symptoms include ear pain or a sore throat, a lump in the neck, difficulty swallowing, change in your voice or speech, unexplained weight loss, a cough, shortness of breath and a feeling of something stuck in the throat. 

It can be caused by a range of risk factors including smoking, drinking alcohol and viral infections, including human papillomavirus (HPV) and Epstein-Barr virus.

How is it treated? 

Pharyngeal cancers are generally treated with radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy. 

Surgery is usually required only if the tumour returns after chemotherapy. 

Treatment for laryngeal cancer depends on the size of the tumour.

Early stages can be treated with radiotherapy and surgery alone, while more advanced disease may also require chemotherapy or other targeted cancer medicines. 

Surgery can involve removing part of the voice box that is affected by cancer.

The ability to speak and breathe normally can be affected, especially if all of the voice box is removed. 

What is the survival rate? 

If the pharyngeal cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, the overall five-year survival rate for all people is 85 per cent. 

Statistics on larynx cancer survival are only available for men. 

This is because so few women are diagnosed with cancer of the larynx.

Around 90 per cent will survive their cancer for five years or more after diagnosis of stage 1 laryngeal cancer.

Stage 1 laryngeal cancer is only in one part of the larynx and the vocal cords are still able to move. 

The cancer has not spread to nearby tissues, lymph nodes or other organs.

Sources: Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Now, Mayo Clinic

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