Sam Neill's Cancer Journey

Sam Neill is a New Zealand actor best known for his role as Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park movies. In 2023, Neill revealed that he had been diagnosed with blood cancer in March 2022 and had been undergoing treatment since then. Today, he is officially cancer-free.

In March 2022, Neill was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, specifically stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL). AITL is a rare type of blood cancer, accounting for approximately 1–2% of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases. It has a poor prognosis, with an estimated five-year relative survival rate of 44%.

Neill shared that he first noticed symptoms while he was working on Jurassic World Dominion. At that time, he “noticed the glands seemed to be up in my neck region, but gave it very little thought”. Moreover, his doctors had “assured me that my lumpy glands were due to undetected COVID, and they'd be hanging around for a little while”. However, his glands continued to grow bigger, which eventually prompted him to go to the hospital for additional tests.

After undergoing a PET scan, he discovered that he had blood cancer. "Within a few days I was lying on a hospital bed having all kinds of chemicals draining into my system, killing everything aboard," he wrote in his memoir, “Did I Ever Tell You This?”.

Neill underwent several rounds of chemotherapy over three months, which he described as “pretty miserable business but it was keeping me alive”. However, his treatment stopped working and his cancer continued to grow.

“The chemo stopped working. I was at a loss, and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal obviously,” Neill recalled.

Neill added that he only had one option left — CAR T-cell therapy. CAR T-cell therapy is a personalized form of immunotherapy that genetically engineers a patient's T cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells. This involved him having bi-weekly infusions. Fortunately, it was effective, and he has been in remission since completing the treatment cycle.

In a recent interview with 7NEWS, Neill shared, “I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing.”

Neill shared that his experience with cancer made him “immensely grateful” for his life and it prompted him to open up about his story. He shared, "I started to think I better write some of this down because I'm not sure how long I have to live.”

Besides sharing his story and raising awareness about the disease, Neill is also fighting to ensure that Australians have access to this treatment. Along with Geoff Nyssen, a fellow survivor who received CAR T-cell therapy as well, Neill is fighting for the Australian state and federal governments to fund the treatment for blood cancer patients, with the help of medical foundation Snowdome.

“I’m very, very excited that this can happen,” Neill shared.