Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with lung cancer following a 90-minute surgery overnight during which surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung. Source: OSV News.
Dr Stefano Margaritora, chief thoracic surgeon at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, led a medical team in the video-assisted technique operation.
In a joint statement with Dr Luigi Carbone released at just before 10pm Rome time (7am AEDT), the doctors said that the “examination confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as suspected by the preoperative tests”.
“The Holy Father was in the operating room for about three hours; the surgery itself lasted approximately 90 minutes,” the statement said. “After the surgery, the pope woke up as expected and, following a brief period of observation, returned to his room on the 10th floor.”
The Pope underwent the surgery yesterday in the late afternoon after being admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital at 1pm Rome time.
Pope Leo is expected to remain for one week of recovery in Gemelli Hospital, located atop Monte Mario, the highest hill in Rome. The Vatican has cancelled all of the Pope’s scheduled audiences until October 20.
The hospital’s chapel was overflowing with people on Tuesday evening as Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of the Rome Diocese, led a Rosary for the Pope’s healing as people anxiously awaited the results of the operation.
Pope Leo’s operation took place just days after he first revealed he needed surgery, at the end of his Angelus address in St Peter’s Square on October 11.
Speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope announced that doctors had discovered a nodule in his lung during a medical examination, adding that the growth was detected “at a very early stage” and it was “well-contained”.
This was the second hospitalisation in the 71-year-old Pope’s life, according to a recently published biography. Shortly after his election, Pope Leo said that he had only been hospitalised once before becoming Pope, when he caught typhoid fever after recently arriving as an Augustinian missionary in Peru in 1985.
“It’s the only time in my life I’ve been hospitalised,” Pope Leo is quoted as saying in the book “Pope Leo XIV by Elise Ann Allen, calling it “a very significant” moment in his life that helped him more sharply focus on his new ministry.
FULL STORY
Pope Leo XIV’s doctors reveal lung cancer (By Courtney Mares, OSV News)
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