Larry king secretly battles lung cancer

Larry King was secretly diagnosed with lung cancer.

The legendary TV host told Us Weekly Wednesday he received the shocking news during a routine visit with his doctor.

“I go for my checkup and they say, ‘Let’s do a chest X-ray,’ and the doctor said to me, ‘Something looks funny,’ ” he explained. “They said the spot looked pretty small... I then did a CAT scan then a PET scan and then he said to me, ‘You have lung cancer, but it looks very small, in the beginning stages.’ ”

King, 83, immediately underwent surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on July 17.

“The doctor said to me, ‘It was malignant, but you were in the first stage. If it had stayed and we didn’t find it, you would have had trouble in two or three years, but we got it and you were lucky.’”

King told the celebrity news magazine it took two weeks to recover after surgery and he then immediately went back to work.