NEIGHBOURS legend Ian Smith shared an ‘unexpected’ health update following his terminal cancer lung diagnosis.
The 87-year-old, who played beloved Harold Bishop on the Aussie soap, first shared his diagnosis in December 2024.
Ian chose to leave the soap earlier this year after he was diagnosed with pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma .
This is a rare and terminal form of lung cancer that gave him just months to live.
Several months on, the actor has a positive update amid his cancer battle.
Ian told the Herald Sun : “It (the cancer) has evened out and immunotherapy is keeping it there and my markers have been the same for the last three treatments.
“They (the medical team) don’t know why I have had this incredible result, they can’t tell me why I am not giving in to cancer.”
This promising news has boosted Ian’s hopes of making a limited acting comeback – whether in voiceover or smaller parts.
He added: “I have said to some very smart people that I wanted to finish my career on the stage.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if I got a small part in a stage play?”
Earlier this year, Ian previously shared an update on his cancer battle.
Speaking on GMB, Smith said: “It’s a cruel, ugly, brutal place, and I don’t know how, but it looks like I’m having the best luck in the world with defeating this cancer.
“Although the oncologist can’t tell me that, they said because this cancer is so rare, so drastic, so severe, so awful, they don’t know, they don’t know what it’s going to do.”
“After my last treatment I asked, ‘How long do I have to keep going with these treatments?’,” he added, explaining he was told he can stop at any time.
“[The doctor] said ‘No. We know so little about this cancer that we don’t know that if you stop taking the treatments, it may roar back into life’.
“So I said: ‘Look, for an hour’s treatment every three weeks I think I can put up with that’ and it looks like these very clever people are going to keep me alive.”
He joined Neighbours in 1987, with his character Harold becoming one of the defining faces on the long-running soap.
Viewers watched as the character received a fitting emotional send-off earlier this year .
In the episode, Harold decided it was time to leave Ramsay Street, deciding to move to Port Douglas, Queensland in order to be close to his granddaughter, Sky.
The move also came shortly after the arrival of newcomer Agnes Adair at retirement facility Eirini Rising.
Due to her striking resemblance to his beloved late wife Madge , Harold struggled to live alongside her.
In a fitting reunion before Ian’s departure, Agnes was played by Anne Charleston – who actually DID play Madge from 1986 to 2001.
