ROME: Pope Leo XIV had a cancerous tumor removed from his right lung during a 90-minute operation Tuesday and “woke up normally” after the procedure, the Vatican said.
A Vatican source said further tests were being carried out to determine whether the cancer had spread.
“To ensure the procedure was radical, the lower lobe of the right lung was removed,” the Vatican said in a statement. The operation “confirmed the diagnosis of a pulmonary adenocarcinoma, as suspected from the pre-operative tests,” it said.
The 71-year-old pope was in the operating room at Rome’s Gemelli hospital for a total of three hours, and the operation lasted half that time.
“The surgery was successful and there were no complications,” the Vatican said. A source added that the pope had requested dinner after the procedure.
Juanita Mora, a medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association, told AFP that when this type of cancer is “caught in early stages, then it has a very, very good prognosis.”
She said much would depend on the stage of the cancer found and whether it had spread. In cases of surgical removal, when the cancer is caught early and localized, five-year survival rates from lung adenocarcinoma were “80 to 98 percent,” she said.
“They’ll determine if he needs chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, or immunotherapy for the adenocarcinoma,” she said.
