Photo: Blackcat / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 it
Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with lung cancer, the Vatican said, after surgeons at Rome’s Agostino Gemelli hospital removed the entire lower lobe of his right lung on Tuesday afternoon. Tissue examined during the operation confirmed a lung adenocarcinoma, a common form of the disease, which pre-operative tests had already pointed to.
The 71-year-old pontiff spent a calm first night in hospital, the Holy See Press Office said on Wednesday morning, adding that more information would be released later in the day.
What the doctors said
In a statement issued through the press office on Tuesday evening, Dr Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora, who heads thoracic surgery at Gemelli and led the surgical team, said the whole lobe was taken out using a video-assisted, minimally invasive technique in order to make the removal “radical”. The Pope was in the operating theatre for about three hours, while the procedure itself lasted around 90 minutes.
The operation was successful and there were no complications.
Medical statement released by the Holy See Press Office
According to the statement, the Pope woke normally and, after a short period of observation, went back to his room on the hospital’s tenth floor. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said he later asked for dinner and spent the evening with his secretaries and other Vatican staff. Further examinations of the removed tissue will be carried out over the coming days, and a Vatican source told international news agencies that the tests would look for any sign that the cancer had spread.
How it came to light
The growth was picked up during what the Vatican described as routine checks. Leo announced it himself on Sunday from a balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square after the Angelus prayer, telling the crowd that the nodule had been found “at a very early stage”, was contained, and that doctors had advised him to have it removed. The Vatican has said he had no symptoms, and he is known to keep active by playing tennis and swimming.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin admitted the news had come as a shock. “Am I worried? Yes, because I certainly didn’t expect something like this,” he said on Tuesday, while adding that the cardinals were confident of a recovery because the problem had been caught early.
Why it matters
This is the first hospital stay of Leo’s pontificate, and the diagnosis has shaken Catholics around the world, since the first American pope is generally regarded as fit and had no known underlying health problems. A US lung cancer specialist said earlier this week that outcomes for the earliest stages of this kind of cancer are generally good, but the full picture will depend on the results of the tests still under way.
The Church continues to function while he is in hospital, and he keeps full papal authority, though any decision that needs his signature will wait. Gemelli has a long association with the papacy: Pope John Paul II was treated there many times, and Pope Francis had an extended stay there with pneumonia.
What happens next
The Vatican says the planned hospital stay of about a week has not changed, and all of the Pope’s public engagements have been cancelled until October 20. A key test of his recovery will be a trip to Latin America planned for early November, which includes Peru, where he served for many years as a missionary and later as a bishop. A cardinal who met him on Monday said Leo chose to have the surgery as soon as possible so that he could keep to that schedule.
