ROME — Pope Leo XIV asked for dinner. That detail, relayed Tuesday night by the Vatican’s press director, was the first sign that the 71-year-old pontiff had come through an operation that ended with a diagnosis the Holy See had not used in public before: lung cancer.
Surgeons at Rome’s Agostino Gemelli University Hospital removed the lower lobe of his right lung on Tuesday afternoon, according to a statement from Dr. Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora released through the Holy See Press Office. “An intraoperative histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as suspected from the preoperative examinations,” the doctors said.
Until then the Vatican had described only a “small, localized nodule,” the wording behind the pope’s Sunday announcement that he would undergo lung surgery to remove a nodule. The doctors called Tuesday’s operation successful and free of complications. Leo was in the operating room for about three hours, though the surgery itself lasted about 90 minutes, and he woke normally and returned to a room on the hospital’s 10th floor after a short period of observation. Matteo Bruni, who directs the press office, said the pope then spent the evening with his secretaries and other Vatican staff.
The harder questions begin where the statement stops. Further examination of the removed tissue is due in the coming days, Vatican News reported, and the statement as published gives no stage, does not say whether lymph nodes were checked and does not say whether any treatment will follow. Leo said on Sunday that the growth had been found “at a very early stage.” The doctors said the cancer diagnosis had been suspected beforehand and was confirmed during surgery.
The type of cancer is a common one. NBC News reported that the Vatican identified it as adenocarcinoma, which the network called the most common type of non-small cell lung cancer, and that Margaritora, Gemelli’s chief thoracic surgeon, led the operation. The network also said Leo is not known to have ever been a smoker and that this cancer can affect smokers and nonsmokers alike. The National Cancer Institute defines adenocarcinoma as a cancer that begins in the cells lining the lung’s air sacs, and its patient guidance says smoking “now or in the past is the most important risk factor for lung cancer.” For disease caught at the earliest stages, the institute lists surgery, including lobectomy, the removal of a whole lobe, among the treatment options. The Vatican has not said which stage applies to the pope.
The practical effect on his schedule is already visible. The Vatican on Monday canceled all of his audiences through Oct. 20, NBC reported, and Vatican News said no change has been communicated to the hospital stay of about a week. Because the papal apartment at Gemelli is being renovated, NBC said, he is recovering in a nearby room. It is the first major health problem disclosed in his 17-month papacy.
The calendar beyond that is less settled. Leo is scheduled to travel to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from Nov. 6 to 17, NBC reported, the longest trip of his papacy, and the Vatican has not said whether it will go ahead. Cardinal Kikuchi Tsutomu of Tokyo, who saw the pope on Monday, wrote on his archdiocese’s Facebook page that Leo “has decided to undergo surgery soon in order to not change his plans for future overseas trips,” adding that “there is no need to worry, as it is not an emergency.”
On Monday, Leo held his morning audiences, arrived at Gemelli at 1:07 p.m. to applause from people waiting outside, and stopped to greet patients, some of them in wheelchairs, according to Vatican News. Cardinal Baldassare Reina, his vicar general for the Diocese of Rome, was scheduled to lead the Rosary in the hospital chapel that evening.
On Wednesday morning the Holy See Press Office is expected to say how the pope slept and whether any results have come back. What it has not said is when the full pathology will be ready, or whether the answer will change a calendar that, as of Tuesday night, still ran to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru.
