In March, Alex Trebek announced that he had Stage IV pancreatic cancer and was going to fight the disease despite his less than encouraging prognosis. Now, the beloved longtime host of Jeopardy! has revealed that he’s in “near remission” in an exclusive interview with People.

Although experts say “near remission” is not a medical term, Trebek likely meant that he is in partial remission. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), partial remission means that the cancer has partly responded to treatment but still didn’t go away. It is most often defined as at least a 50% reduction in tumor size.

“It’s kind of mind-boggling,” said 78-year-old Trebek. “The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive result in their memory…some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50%.”

Pancreatic cancer has a 9% overall survival rate, the ACS reports. Luckily, Trebek has been responding positively to chemotherapy. He still plans to undergo several rounds of chemotherapy in the hope that his cancer will go into full remission.

Trebek says he cried tears of joy after learning the news. (He has experienced depression since his diagnosis.) He also attributes his body’s response to the chemo to the well wishes from friends and fans across the globe.

“I told the doctors, this has to be more than just chemo, and they agreed it could very well be an important part of this,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of love out there headed in my direction and a lot of prayer, and I will never ever minimize the value of that.”

While many folks on social media have been celebrating Trebek’s recent update, some are also calling on him and his doctors to reveal his chemotherapy regimen so others may see the same success when fighting this cancer.

For more on pancreatic cancer, click here and here.