BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reveals he has bowel cancer and has undergone surgery to remove a tumour

• BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen has revealed he is battling bowel cancer
• 59-year-old appeared on BBC Breakfast today to urge others to get tested
• He was diagnosed despite not having any traditional symptoms of disease 

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BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, pictured, has revealed he is being treated for bowel cancer this morning

BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen has announced he has bowel cancer.

The 59-year-old revealed his diagnosis on BBC Breakfast this morning and said he had not suffered from any of the usual symptoms.  

He appeared on BBC Breakfast alongside Bowel Cancer UK chief executive Deborah Alsina to urge others to get tested.  

Mr Bowen said he was diagnosed with the disease in October after suffering ‘funny pains’ in his leg and back.

The experienced journalist, 59, told BBC Breakfast: ‘I’m a positive kind of guy.

‘The chemo is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be in terms of side-effects. I think I’ve just been quite lucky to tolerate it.

‘You’ve got to keep positive about things in life. It’s all part of the journey.

Bowen has urged others to seek testing for cancer in order to catch the disease early, revealing he did not suspect what was revealed with his own diagnosis.

He said: ‘I was diagnosed with it last October. I had some funny pains in my leg and my back, when I was in Iraq.

‘When I came back I had to go to hospital for a couple of days, but they didn’t mention cancer. They said it was to do with some scar tissue I had from some previous surgery.

‘I went to my GP and I had no symptoms, none of the classic bowel cancer symptoms. I got a test and it came back positive.

‘From that they found that I had a tumour. I had surgery to take it away. And now I’m having chemotherapy. The key thing is, get tested. I’ve been saying to all my friends, ‘get tested’.’

He added that despite bowel cancer testing being concerned with bodily functions, people should not ‘die of embarrassment’. 

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Mr Bowen joined the BBC in 1984 and has served as a war correspondent for much of his time at the broadcaster.

He was born in Cardiff, Wales, and is the son of a former BBC Radio Wales new editor Gareth Bowen.

Mr Bowen, who earns between £150,000 and £199,000 according to the BBC’s salary disclosure, studied at University College London and Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, US, before going into journalism.

Mr Bowen has worked for the BBC since 1984 and has covered several major conflicts including the Bosnian war. He is pictured here returning to a hospital in Sarajevo years after the war ended

Mr Bowen, pictured in the Middle East, joined the BBC in 1984 and has covered several major conflicts including the Syrian Civil War, the Bosnian War and the 1999 Kosovo conflict

Among the major conflicts he has covered are the Bosnian War and the Kosovo conflict in 1999 where he was robbed at gunpoint by bandits.

He was also shot with shotgun pellets in the head while covering protests in Egypt in 2013, but escaped with minor injuries.

Mr Bowen’s time on the front lines also led to a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder after his care came under fire while covering the pullout of Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000.

One of his colleagues was killed in the attack and Mr Bowen subsequently moved to present BBC Breakfast for two years alongside Sophie Raworth.

He later turned down the chance to cover the 2003 invasion of Iraq but did eventually return to field reporting, becoming the BBC’s first Middle East editor when the role was created in 2005.

Among the notable foreign leaders he has interviewed are Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, shortly after the start of the 2011 Libyan Civil War which would end in the leader’s capture and death, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an exclusive report in February 2015 during the Syrian Civil War.

After his car came under fire in Lebanon in 2000 in an attack that killed a friend, Mr Bowen moved away from frontline reporting and presented BBC Breakfast with Sophie Raworth, pictured, for two years

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