Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard shares positive health update

Vivian Campbell, guitarist for Def Leppard, claims that he is “completely in remission for the first time” following his 2013 Hodgkin’s cancer diagnosis. On January 18, the seasoned British rock band performed at Feria Estatal De León in León, Mexico, for their first show of 2025. Similar to the band’s private performance in Nashville on October 14, 2024 (as part of the Daimler Truck Customer Appreciation Event), Vivian was unable to accompany his bandmates for the León gig. John Zocco, Phil Collen’s guitar tech, took his place. Since then, Campbell has returned to the road with Def Leppard, performing alongside his bandmates in May in Ocean City, Maryland’s Boardwalk Rock event and San Juan, Puerto Rico. On June 11, Campbell appeared on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk to provide an update on his health.

I’ve been very lucky, actually. I got an early diagnosis for Hodgkin’s lymphoma 13 years ago, 12 years ago, something like that. [I went] through the mill with all sorts of chemo and immunotherapy and combination therapies, and 10 years ago I did an autologous stem cell transplant, which means using my own stem cells. That didn’t work. The cancer kept coming back, and then a couple of years ago, it really got bad. So it was the first time in having to deal with it that I was seriously concerned about it. And the doctors told me really my only chance for of cure was to do a donor transplant. And that’s exactly what I did. Starting last summer during our tour, I started doing more chemo in preparation for it. And then right after the tour, they started giving me very hardcore chemo leading up to the transplant. I was supposed to start after Thanksgiving, and I lost my donor 10 days beforehand. So that was a kick in the nuts. But I was very fortunate that they found me another one in December. And 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. So 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. And I am obviously overjoyed. You couldn’t ask for more than that. I had an incredible donor. There are 10 genetic markers, and this donor was a 10 out of 10. A young man, actually. I don’t get to know who he is for a couple of years, but a 21-year-old man. And they always prefer a youthful donor. Obviously, I’m gonna buy him a beer — or two or three.

Who knows why things like this happen.

Why, indeed. I mean, it’s just a testament to some strange guy’s character. He decided to put his name on the registry, the donor registry, for no reason other than he’s a good person. So there are a lot of good people out there, I’m glad to say. The transplant, actually, given its proper, clever medical term, is allogeneic hematopoietic [stem cell] transplant. I have no idea what that means other than it means a donor transplant. But the process for the donor, if it were a family member, they’d probably be willing to undergo the complete surgery required to use actual bone marrow. With strangers, they use enriched stem cell blood. But what the donor has to do is still very, very involved. They’ve gotta take this stuff called Neupogen for about a week or a week and a half prior to donating the material. And Neupogen is pretty hardcore. I’ve done it myself about 10 years ago, and it generates your stem cell growth in the bone marrow itself. And it causes a lot of discomfort and bone pain. So it’s not for nothing that somebody would do that. It is a pretty heavy lift, and I’m just glad there are some great people in the world.

He also shared the process he had to go through.

It essentially comes down to a blood transfusion. After the first week in the hospital, you get chemo every day and then a day of radiation and then on day seven, they actually do the transplant and then a day off after that to just recover and then two more days of chemo and just a week or three of sickness as your body fights this stuff. And it’s not pleasant to go through it at all, but I would do it a hundred times more if I got the same results.

Campbell cannot yet get in touch with the person who has done such an incredible gesture.

They just like to keep it anonymous. After two years, they give you the option to contact your donor, so you can reach out to them. I would imagine in this day and age it’s via e-mail, and if they wanna correspond with you, they can, but they don’t have to. But obviously, it’s a life-saving proposition, so I’d certainly wanna express my gratitude.

Cambell keeps a really positive attitude through everything.

My glass has always been half full. I’ve always looked at life that way, and I also believe you play the hand you’re dealt. And in any situation in life, there’s really only two ways you can respond to something: you can go as positive as possible or go as negative as possible. To be honest, as it relates to cancer, I’ve unfortunately known a bunch of people who have gotten the cancer diagnosis and have chosen to be very gloomy and pessimistic in their outlook towards their prognosis, and it usually follows that route. I mean, what you put out in the universe is usually what you get back. So I just like to deal with it. Plus every cloud has a silver lining. I actually do think that my health has benefited from this. I mean, my health has been extremely closely monitored for the last 12 or 13 years and will continue to be for at least a couple more years. So I’ve lost, myself, so many friends in recent years. Even thinking about Last In Line, we lost Jimmy Bain to cancer. We lost our manager, Steve Strange, to cancer. Both of those guys — Jimmy never even actually got a diagnosis. It was only after the fact, in the autopsy, it was determined he had lung cancer. Steve Strange, our Last In Line manager, died within two, two and a half years of getting his diagnosis, because so many people, unfortunately, don’t get diagnosed until they’re stage four or something. I was very, very fortunate that I knew something was going on with me and I kept at my doctors. I said, ‘Look, something’s going on here. You’ve gotta give me an X-ray. You’ve gotta give me a CAT scan. You’ve gotta figure this out.’ And when they eventually did, about a year and a half after I’d begun to pester them, ’cause it was a solid 18 months that I knew something was wrong with, and it was a solid 18 months before they actually put me in touch with the right people and I got my diagnosis. So I was fortunate that I caught it early. And I do strongly advocate for people to be advocates for their own health. Doctors are very, very clever — they go to med med school for a long time, and they’re very well trained, but they’re not inside your actual body. Only we really know what’s going on with us. And I would urge anyone out there listening, if they think there’s something going with their body to go see their doctor, and trust the science, trust the medicine. And it’s absolutely amazing what they can do.