Busy Philipps' Scan Found a Rare Brain Tumor

The actress credits a full-body MRI with catching a tumor she had no symptoms of.

Busy Philipps, 47, revealed on August 26, 2026, that she had surgery to remove a brain tumor earlier this year after a full-body MRI scan caught something she had no symptoms of. She told People magazine she is "grateful that I'm alive" and described the ordeal as "the weirdest six months of my life."

Philipps had no obvious symptoms such as seizures, and her primary care doctor had told her bloodwork was fine after her annual physical, according to USA Today. She initially wanted to cancel the Prenuvo scan scheduled for February 12 — the day after her friend and former Dawson's Creek co-star James Van Der Beek died of colon cancer at 48 — but her ex-husband Marc Silverstein encouraged her to keep the appointment.

The scan revealed a lesion on her brain, and a follow-up MRI at NYU Langone confirmed a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare slow-growing tumor. The Hollywood Reporter reports that on March 2, Philipps underwent a roughly five-hour surgery to remove a 2.6-centimeter mass from her frontal lobe. Her neuro-oncologist told People the tumor is considered malignant but has the best prognosis of all malignant gliomas.

In April, while visiting her dermatologist for Botox, the doctor noticed Philipps' surgical incision did not look right and urged her to contact her surgeons. According to the Detroit Free Press, Philipps was diagnosed with a staph infection at the incision site and returned to the hospital on April 27 for a procedure to clear the infection and remove one of the small titanium tacks placed in her skull during the first surgery. "The second surgery really threw me," she told People.

USA Today reports that research on full-body MRIs like the Prenuvo scan is mixed: one 2020 study found that 95% of asymptomatic patients had some type of abnormal finding, but just 1.8% were cancer. Dr. Manjiri Dighe, a radiology professor at the University of Washington, previously told USA Today that whole-body MRI "is in its clinical infancy" and remains a luxury item rather than an evidence-based medical necessity, costing several hundred to several thousand dollars and not covered by insurance.

Philipps does not currently need chemotherapy or radiation but will undergo regular scans to watch for possible recurrence, according to the Detroit Free Press. She told People she hopes her experience encourages others — especially women — to trust their instincts: "We are frequently told by doctors that there is nothing to worry about [when] you kind of know that there's something to worry about. There's nothing to be afraid of in having information. It's only empowering."