By NICOLE WINFIELD and COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press
ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV spent a peaceful night in Rome’s Gemelli hospital after doctors removed the lower lobe of his right lung and confirmed he has cancer, the Vatican said Wednesday.
The surgery showed that the pope has the most common type of lung cancer, known as lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin late Tuesday. The revelation — within a few hours of an operation that was announced by Leo himself — offered further evidence that the American pontiff is taking a new approach to communicating about his health.
Doctors were waiting for the results of further tests before deciding on a course of treatment, the Vatican said. The press office pointed to the medical statement’s mention of the “radical” removal of the lobe as an indication that doctors took out all suspect tissue in hopes of removing any lingering traces of the cancer.
Experts said some of Leo’s lymph nodes also would have been removed and tested to determine if the cancer had spread. There was no word yet on those test results.
If the cancer has spread, more tests will be needed to determine what kind of therapy to pursue, said Dr. Stephen Liu, a lung cancer expert at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Options include chemotherapy, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy or targeted therapy, which involves pills for specific cancers.
“Adenocarcinoma is the most common (type of lung cancer), also with the most favorable prognosis,” said Liu, who is not involved in the pope’s care. “While we know the diagnosis, we now need to know the stage.”
He added: “We now need to know how big it is, how many spots in the lung are involved. Is it just one nodule, or more than one, and the lymph nodes, are they cancerous?”
The pope is breaking with a tradition of secrecy surrounding health issues
The American pontiff has offered a rare level of transparency about the first publicly disclosed major health problem of his 17-month papacy. He revealed the discovery of the nodule, or growth, on his lung during his Sunday noon prayer, announcing it to the world on live television almost as an aside at the end of his blessing.
“That was truly a revolution. It was like he was reading a medical bulletin himself,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and the former editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
The Vatican has long been secretive about the health of popes and tightly controlled any such information – a practice encapsulated in the popular Italian saying, “ The pope is fine until he’s dead.”
St. John XXIII died in 1963, nearly a year after doctors diagnosed stomach cancer that was kept hidden at the time. St. John Paul II died in 2005 after suffering for years from the obvious effects of Parkinson’s disease that the Vatican only confirmed after he died.
Pope Francis seemed more up front about his health problems, giving an Argentine doctor a tell-all interview for a book about his physical and mental health. But in the end Francis, too, tightly controlled the information that was released in his dying months.
Vian, who was part of the Vatican communications team from 2007 to 2018, said the Vatican’s obsession with secrecy about the pope’s health was due to both practical and cultural considerations. He noted the Vatican is a 2,000-year-old institution that is culturally European — and Europeans tend to be more guarded about health problems than people in the United States.
“In theory, the pope has an absolute power, so you can understand that there are many people who would aspire to that absolute power,” he said. Secrecy about a pope’s health, therefore “is a legitimate defense from both the pope in question and the institution itself.”
He attributed Leo’s decision to reveal his health condition to his American outlook and serenity, and said he hoped it would extend to other aspects of Vatican communications.
That said, Leo didn’t share everything he knew on Sunday when he announced the existence of the nodule: Tuesday’s medical bulletin said doctors had suspected cancer based on tests, a suspicion that was confirmed in surgery.
The Vatican says the operation was a success
The 71-year-old’s surgery lasted approximately 90 minutes, the Vatican statement said Tuesday.
“The surgery was successful, and there were no complications,” the statement said, adding that the pope later returned to his room. Gemelli has a papal apartment that past popes have used, but it is undergoing renovations, so Leo is recovering in a nearby room, according to the Vatican press office.
The right lung has three sections or lobes while the left has two. After one lobe is removed, the rest of the lung can gradually compensate, especially in otherwise healthy and physically active people. Leo is known to be sporty, with weekly tennis games and swimming.
Before the surgery, Leo walked into the Gemelli hospital through the main entrance and waved to dozens of well-wishers.
Oncologists said prior to the operation that even if the nodule turned out to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis would be “excellent” since it would have been removed at an early stage.
The pope has a trip to South America planned for November
The Vatican on Monday canceled all Leo’s audiences through Oct. 20. But there was no word on whether he would be able to keep his planned trip to South America next month.
Oncology surgeons often advise patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery — which would give the pope just enough time to make his planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. But whether he can go will depend on his recovery.
The current itinerary for the trip is ambitious and the longest of his papacy to date, calling for Leo to clock just over 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides, and a significant altitude change in Peru.
“If it is stage 1, he can complete these trips. If more treatment is needed, I would likely advise against the trips,” said Liu.
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Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.
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