Dr. George Crawford announced Kate Middleton’s illness

Kate Middleton didn’t disclose what type of cancer she’s battling — but one doctor who specializes in this field says he has a good idea of what it could be … and how it was found.

Dr. George Crawford — a general surgeon who focuses on bariatric, colon and minimally invasive procedures in the operating room — joined “TMZ Live” Friday to discuss the Princess of Wales’ announcement … where she said cancer was found during her abdominal surgery.

While Kate didn’t get into the details of the exact type of cancer that was found — Dr. Crawford tells us that, in his professional opinion, it could likely be one of two.

Crawford says that based on Kate’s age and other factors … he speculates that doctors might’ve discovered either ovarian or uterine cancer — that’s his best guess anyway.

He’s not suggesting he knows her exact diagnosis for certain, but Dr. Crawford says his personal experience leads him to land on these two possibilities — and he even gets into how exactly this may have unfolded while she was under the knife for her scheduled surgery.

It’s pretty fascinating — Dr. Crawford says it seems likely to him that the medical team found something alarming in the middle of the procedure and probably had a biopsy run on it right then and there. He says that’s usually how these types of things go, and they can get an answer back fairly quickly … which can change the course of the entire operation.

He also weighs in on the fact Kate says she just recently started preventative chemo — which Dr. Crawford says makes sense, seeing how much recovery time is needed for an invasive surgery like the one she seems to have undergone … and how heavy chemo is on the body.

BTW, Dr. Crawford was on to this from the get-go … he told us in our documentary about the mystery surrounding Kate that the most realistic scenario was the one that has unfolded.