Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with cancer and has had the lower lobe of his right lung removed during surgery on Tuesday, according to the Vatican.
Tests confirmed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, a common form of lung cancer, the Vatican said. The diagnosis had been suspected during preoperative tests and was confirmed during surgery.
The 71-year-old pontiff spent around three hours in the operating room, and the surgery itself took around 90 minutes.
“In order to make the procedure curative, the lower lobe of the right lung was removed using a video-assisted technique,” wrote lead surgeon Professor Stefano Margaritora.
"A rapid intraoperative histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as had been suspected from the pre-operative tests.”
The Vatican said the surgery was successful and there were no complications. Afterwards, Pope Leo was awake and resting in his hospital room.
Dozens of well-wishers greeted him at the hospital before the procedure.
In a rare level of transparency, the Pope revealed the discovery of a small nodule on his lung during his Sunday noon prayer and announced that he would have it removed.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3cm (1.2ins) that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. The scans are often done to investigate trauma or a lung infection, unrelated to a lung cancer screening.
A nodule may be benign or malignant, and surgical removal is often recommended to establish whether it is cancer, and to treat a malignancy while it is still localised.
Before the procedure, oncologists said that even if the growth proved to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis was “excellent” because it would be removed at an early stage.
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The Vatican has cancelled all of Leo’s audiences for a week while he recovers.
The Pope is known to be sporty and in good shape, playing tennis weekly and swimming. The lung surgery is believed to be his second spell in hospital.
He came down with typhoid fever as a young missionary priest in 1985, soon after arriving in Chulucanas, Peru. The illness and hospital stay were a cathartic moment for him to decide to stay in the poverty and discomfort of Peru after living in relative comfort in Rome — a decision that ultimately paved the way to his papacy, according to an interview he gave to Elise Ann Allen last year for Pope Leo XIV: The Biography.
According to the book, Leo said he prayed to God to let him die rather than suffer the “horrible” pain of the fever. “I was hooked up to an IV, and I said, ‘If this is your sense of humour, Lord, I think you could do a little better’.
“Obviously, I survived; I recovered, but it turned out to be a very significant moment for me, because it was like, ‘Well, you’ve already dealt with the illness; you already see what the needs are here — the order, the Augustinians, the church are telling you, ‘We need you here; go for it.’ I never looked back.”
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