Vivian Campbell says his Hodgkin’s lymphoma has returned after his 2025 donor transplant, and treatment continues.
Vivian Campbell has disclosed that the Hodgkin’s lymphoma he was declared clear of last year has come back. Speaking to Francisco Sigüenza of El Salvador’s “Radio YSKL FM“, the Def Leppard guitarist said the donor stem cell transplant he underwent at the start of 2025 has not held, and that he is on ongoing treatment to keep the disease in check while continuing to work and tour.
Campbell described the point in late 2023 when the situation became serious, and what has happened since.
“There’s only been one time that I felt it was gonna kill me. In the winter of 2023, I got really scared about what was happening and the pace at which it was happening. And I realized at that point that I had to do a donor transplant. It was my only hope to survive. And that’s what I did. I did that in January of ’25. I did a donor transplant. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick. So the cancer has returned. And I’m continuing treatments to manage it. I’ll probably have to do another transplant within a few years with another donor to try and see if maybe that would cure me. But in the meantime, I’m certainly not slowing down. I’m doing as much with my life as possible, not just with Def Leppard and with [Vivian‘s long-running side project] Last In Line. I’m also rally driving, ’cause I always wanted to do that. So I’ve been doing that more and more, ’cause I love cars and I love driving. And as a child, I thought, ‘If I don’t play guitar for a living, I’m gonna be a race car driver.’ So, I’m very, very, very fortunate and blessed that I get to do both,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Regarding how the 2013 diagnosis changed his outlook, Campbell said carrying on with his job has been what carried him.
“Well, I think you have to keep moving forward,” he continued. “And I do think that that’s what helped me, even when I was at a really low ebb with cancer treatment. The fact that I could still continue to work, that gives me something to live for, something that you enjoy, that you’re passionate about, that you can wake up in the morning and look forward to. I think that deflects, that takes away from focusing too much on cancer.”
Campbell added: “Unfortunately, I have met people in my life who, when they’ve gotten a cancer diagnosis, they’ve only focused on that. And they think, ‘Oh, I can’t do anything. I need to stay in bed. I can’t eat this. I can’t do that. I can’t go there.’ I’ve never felt that way. I’ve always felt like I’m gonna continue to live my life as much as possible. In fact, even more so. After getting a cancer diagnosis, it amplifies that desire to tick all the boxes, to do the things you wanna do. But I also consider myself very fortunate because I caught my cancer early. So, it’s always been more about managing my cancer.”
Campbell closed with a message to anyone in the same position: “So, yeah, life is for the living. And I encourage everyone to look after their own health. And if you are unfortunate enough to get a cancer diagnosis to overcome the fear. Fear is inevitable when you’re first told those words. But once you get over that, you gotta realize just how to manage it and how to deal with it as best as possible, and just don’t give in.”
The news reverses an outcome Campbell announced 14 months ago. In June 2025 he told SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk“ that a PET scan in mid-April had come back clean and that he was in remission for the first time in more than a decade.
“I did a PET scan in the middle of April and I’m a hundred percent clean, completely in remission for the first time in 12 or 13 years,” Campbell said at the time. “And I am obviously overjoyed. You couldn’t ask for more than that.”
“I was supposed to start after Thanksgiving, and I lost my donor 10 days beforehand. So that was a kick in the nuts,” he recalled. Fortunately, another donor was found in December. “On New Year’s Eve, I went into hospital. I was in for about three and a half weeks, and I did what has turned out to be a really, really successful transplant.”
Campbell expressed immense gratitude for his anonymous donor, a 21-year-old man who was a perfect 10-out-of-10 genetic match. “I mean, it’s just a testament to some strange guy’s character,” Campbell said. “He decided to put his name on the registry, the donor registry, for no reason other than he’s a good person… I’m just glad there are some great people in the world.” He added: “Obviously, I’m gonna buy him a beer — or two or three.”
Campbell was diagnosed in March 2013 and made it public that June. He has been through several rounds of chemotherapy, immunotherapy including a clinical trial of pembrolizumab, and combination treatments, plus a transplant using his own stem cells that did not last. He also had spine surgery around 2019.
The treatment kept him off a handful of shows rather than off the road. He missed a private Def Leppard performance in Nashville in October 2024 and the band’s opening concert of 2025 in León, Mexico that January, with John Zocco covering both, and returned to the stage in May 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Campbell joined Def Leppard in April 1992, and the lineup he completes alongside Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Rick Savage and Rick Allen has been unchanged since. Before that he played with Dio and Whitesnake, and he has led Last In Line since 2012.
