Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, a US streamer, has stated that he has been diagnosed with melanoma, a kind of skin cancer.
In a post on X, the 32-year-old Fortnite gamer, who has 19 million Twitch followers, said that a mole excised from his foot had cancer.
Ninja stated that a second black area on his foot was also being examined, and that he was “shocked” but “grateful to have hope” because the cancer was discovered early.
He urges people to have frequent check-ups.
Ninja has become identified with Twitch since his return to the streaming service in 2020, after a brief spell with Microsoft’s competitor platform Mixer, which was shut down in June of that year.
He is so popular on Fortnite that gamers may pay to have their avatars look like him.
His position as one of the most well-known personalities in streaming has led to him participating on mainstream shows such as The Masked Singer US.
In his X post, Ninja stated that he discovered the malignancy after seeing a dermatologist for his yearly mole check-up.
“There was a mole on the bottom of my foot that they wanted to remove just to be careful,” the man claimed.
“It came back as melanoma, but they are optimistic that we caught it in the early stages.”
According to the NHS website, melanoma is a kind of skin cancer that can spread to other regions of the body and is usually triggered by UV rays from the sun.
It recommends individuals to protect themselves from the sun by wearing sunscreen and reapplying it on a regular basis.
People with light skin, many moles, and a family history of skin cancer are more likely to acquire melanoma.
Although surgery is the primary treatment, chemotherapy may be performed if the disease has spread.
