Vatican doctors say Pope Leo needs no further cancer treatment, tumour confirmed localised after removal of lung lobe

Images

×

Pope Leo delivered his weekly address on Wednesday as he gradually resumes normal duties. Photograph: Franco Origlia/Getty Images theguardian.com

Pope Leo will need no further cancer treatment, his doctors said on Wednesday, after final histological and molecular analyses of the tissue removed on 13 October confirmed the tumour had not spread. The Vatican published the statement itself — a running medical bulletin from an institution that historically obscured a pontiff's illness until succession questions forced disclosure.

The pope, 71, had the lower lobe of his right lung removed after being diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. His lead surgeon Stefano Margaritora and personal physician Luigi Carbone stated that a subsequent oncological evaluation confirmed no further therapy is required. Leo was discharged from hospital on Saturday, returned to St Peter's Square for his weekly audience on Wednesday, and is gradually resuming his duties — he had continued working from hospital throughout his recovery, including a phone call last Friday to Vladimir Putin urging a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky.

The candour is the story as much as the prognosis. For centuries the Holy See treated a pope's health as a state secret, with illnesses announced only when a conclave was already inevitable. Leo's election in May last year made him the first US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, and his medical bulletins — named surgeons, named diagnoses, molecular biology results — read like a modern hospital's discharge paperwork rather than curial diplomacy. An institution of 1.4 billion members has decided that a sitting pope's mortality is better managed in public.

What remains unresolved is the calendar. A trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru scheduled for 6–17 November is still unconfirmed; Margaritora said last week there were no clinical reasons preventing the journey, but the Vatican's secretary of state indicated the pontiff may need to adjust his pace. Before the diagnosis, Leo was generally believed to be in good health — he plays tennis and regularly uses the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo. On Sunday he told a crowd in St Peter's Square the experience had left him feeling especially close to all those going through illness or infirmity.