Former Denver Nuggets star and dedicated humanitarian Dikembe Mutombo died October 1 from brain cancer. He was 58 years old.
Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mutombo was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015 and served as a longtime global ambassador for the NBA. In 2022, his family revealed he was being treated for a brain tumor.
While details of Mutombo’s diagnosis and treatment were never disclosed, we spoke with University of Colorado Cancer Center member Ryan Ormond, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery and director of the Adult Brain Tumor Program at the CU School of Medicine, about how brain tumors are typically diagnosed and treated.