ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV On Wednesday, he resumed his usual diet, began walking and underwent breathing exercises as he recovered from surgery to remove a cancerous mass from his lung, the Vatican said. Questions remained over whether the cancer had spread, while the Peruvian president suggested Leo may have to change his planned visit to Latin America next month.
Blood tests and a chest X-ray showed the 71-year-old Pope was recovering normally, his two doctors said.
“The Holy Father underwent respiratory physiotherapy and began walking in his room. He resumed his usual diet and ate breakfast and lunch,” said Dr. Luigi Carbone, the pope’s personal physician, and Dr. Stefano Margaritora, a thoracic surgeon. “The recovery is going as planned.”
Tuesday operation confirmed that Leo suffers from lung adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer. Surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung.
The right lung has three lobes and the left has two. After a lobe is removed, the remaining lung tissue can gradually compensate, especially in physically active and healthy people. Leo is known for his interest in sports, including weekly tennis matches and swimming.
It is not yet known whether the Pope’s cancer has spread
Experts said some of Leo’s lymph nodes may also have been removed and tested to determine if the cancer had spread. These results have not yet been made public.
If the cancer has spread, test results will guide treatment, said Dr. Stephen Liu, a lung cancer expert at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Georgetown. Options include chemotherapy, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, or targeted therapy, which uses pills to treat cancers with specific characteristics.
Liu, who is not involved in the pope’s care, said that among the different types of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma has the most favorable prognosis.
“Although we know the diagnosis, now we need to know the stage,” Liu said. “We now need to know how big it is, how many points in the lung are affected. Is it a single nodule, or several, and are the lymph nodes cancerous?”
Dr. PierCarlo Gentile, head of the radiation oncology department at San Pietro Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome, said the minimally invasive, video-assisted chest operation the pope underwent typically requires 15 to 20 days of recovery. Postoperative complications, including infections, are rare, he said.
Doubts about traveling to Latin America
The Vatican has not announced any changes to Leo’s planned trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from November 6-17.
But Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori said Wednesday that the pope’s diagnosis and recovery could affect the visit, although she expressed hope that it would go ahead. Leo spent two decades as a missionary in Peru, holds Peruvian citizenship and is beloved by his flock there.
“We understand that this recovery will take several weeks, longer than expected,” Fujimori told reporters. “We also understand that there may be changes to the timing of his visit.”
The ambitious itinerary for the longest trip of his papacy spans just over 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles), with a dozen flights and two helicopter flyovers across the three countries, as well as a significant elevation gain in Peru.
Fujimori said millions of Peruvians were praying for the pontiff’s recovery and awaiting further announcements from the Vatican.
“We hope that his recovery will be quick and that his visit can take place, but we will also understand if that is not possible,” she said. “What matters most is that His Holiness regains his health.”
Oncology surgeons often advise patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery.
“If it’s stage 1, he can do these trips. If further treatment is needed, I would probably advise against travel,” Liu said.
Doctors took tissue samples before the operation
The pontiff showed a rare degree of transparency over the first major health issue revealed publicly during his 17-month pontificate.
He revealed the discovery of a nodule, or growth, on his lung during his Sunday noon prayerannouncing it on live television almost as an aside at the end of his blessing. But Leo didn’t reveal everything he knew on Sunday.
Tuesday’s medical bulletin said pre-operative tests led doctors to suspect cancer, which surgery confirmed. Leo did not use the word cancer in his announcement, although he described the nodule as being in an “early stage.”
The Vatican has now said those tests included a robotic bronchoscopic biopsy, meaning doctors had already taken tissue samples to assess whether the mass was cancerous.
The procedure requires general anesthesia and must be performed in a hospital equipped with one of the most advanced machines, said Dr. Lorenzo Spaggiari, chief thoracic surgeon at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. He said Gemelli Hospital has had one for about a year.
The Vatican did not say when Leo underwent the diagnostic tests, which also included a chest CT scan with contrast and a PET scan.
Pope breaks with tradition of secrecy around health issues
The Vatican has long kept the health of popes secret and closely controlled any such information – a practice summed up in the popular Italian saying: “ The Pope was fine until his death.
Saint John XXIII died in 1963, almost a year after doctors diagnosed stomach cancer that was then hidden. Saint John Paul II died in 2005 after suffering for years from the obvious effects of Parkinson’s disease, which the Vatican only confirmed after his death.
Pope Francis has become more candid about his health problems, giving a revealing interview to an Argentine doctor to a book about his physical and mental health. But ultimately, Francis also tightly controlled the information released in his final months.
As a result, Leo’s decision to self-announce that he had a lump and was undergoing surgery was significant.
“It was a real revolution. It was as if he himself was reading a medical bulletin,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, a Church historian and former editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Vian, who served on the Vatican communications team from 2007 to 2018, said the Vatican’s obsession with secrecy over the pope’s health was due to both practical and cultural considerations. He pointed out that the Vatican is a 2,000-year-old institution and culturally European — and that Europeans tend to be more cautious about health concerns than Americans.
“In theory, the pope has absolute power, so you can understand that many people aspire to that absolute power,” he said. Secrecy about a pope’s health “is therefore a legitimate defense both of the pope in question and of the institution itself.”
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Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press video producer Paolo Santalucia in Rome and Associated Press writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives AP support collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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