Pope Leo XIV He will be operated on this week after the discovery of a nodular lesion in his lung, the Vatican said. Recovery is expected to take a week.
Leo, 71, said on Sunday that doctors recently discovered the nodular lesion during medical check-ups. He said it was discovered at an early stage and was “contained”.
“The doctors think it is best to act, so following their advice, I decided to have surgery to remove it,” Leo said during his Sunday lunchtime blessing. “Thank you for your spiritual support and I entrust myself to your prayers.”
A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni did not say when the pope would be hospitalized but that it would be in the “first days” of the week. He was to be treated at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, which has a special apartment for the pope.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 1 inch that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen, according to the American Cancer Society. Often, the tests are done to investigate lung trauma or infection, unrelated to lung cancer screening.
“Lung nodules are quite common and are often benign, but benign and cancerous nodules can have a similar appearance on imaging,” said Dr. Stephen Liu, a lung cancer expert at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Georgetown.
“When there is sufficient concern and it is safe to do so based on the location of the nodule and the patient’s overall health, surgical removal can provide a definitive diagnosis,” he said in an email.
The pope has planned a major trip from November 6 to 17 to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. It’s unclear whether the planned surgery and recovery would affect the itinerary, but Leo said earlier in his remarks Sunday that he planned to go.
The American pope has no previously known health problems and is known to be physically active, with weekly tennis matches and swimming at the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo. According to Dr. Massimo Di Maio, president of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology, it is “an important starting point to best manage treatment, including surgery.”
Di Maio said it will be important to determine whether the nodule is benign or malignant, and if malignant, whether it has spread. When the disease is detected at an early stage, “the objective (…) is curative”, he added.
Depending on what is discovered, possible treatments may include chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Di Maio told private Italian broadcaster Sky TG24.
“When we talk about something localized, it can also refer to the need to determine whether the disease is confined to that one location or whether the scans show signs of disease elsewhere,” he said, adding that he had not treated the pope and was talking about the disease in general.
Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, died on April 21, 2025 of a stroke following a long hospitalization caused by a respiratory attack that developed into double pneumonia. Francis suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of a lung removed as a young man.
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