Pope Leo XIV spent a peaceful night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital after surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung and confirmed he has cancer, the Vatican said Wednesday. The diagnosis is lung adenocarcinoma. What comes next? The Vatican has no answer yet.
That gap is the story. A medical bulletin issued late Tuesday said preoperative tests had raised suspicion of cancer, which surgery then confirmed. It offered no mention of treatment going forward. The Vatican hasn’t said whether the cancer might have spread. Doctors are waiting for results from further tests before choosing a course of treatment, the Vatican said, and more information would come later Wednesday.
What the Vatican Has Said
The Vatican said surgeons completed the operation to remove a malignant lung nodule “successfully, on schedule and as planned.” The surgery lasted approximately 90 minutes; the 71-year-old pontiff spent about three hours in the operating room. “The surgery was successful, and there were no complications,” the statement said. Surgeons removed the lobe using a “video-assisted technique.”
Dr. Stefano Margaritora, Gemelli’s chief thoracic surgeon, led the procedure. Medical staff recited the rosary in the hospital chapel as the operation began. Afterward, the pope “woke up normally and, after a brief period of observation, returned to his room on the tenth floor.”
The Vatican press office pointed to the bulletin’s reference to the “radical” removal of the lobe as a sign doctors took out all suspect tissue, hoping to clear any lingering traces of cancer. Experts said doctors would also have removed and tested his lymph nodes. The Vatican hasn’t released those results.
What Isn’t Known
Dr. Stephen Liu, a lung cancer expert at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center who isn’t involved in the pope’s care, laid out the unanswered questions plainly. “While we know the diagnosis we now need to know the stage,” he said. “We now need to know how big it is, how many spots in the lung are involved. Is it just one nodule, or more than one, and the lymph nodes, are they cancerous?”
If the cancer has spread, Liu said, further tests would determine the therapy. Options include chemotherapy, chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy, or targeted therapy with oral pills. For now, the implications for the pope’s long-term health remain unclear. The Vatican said doctors aren’t currently discussing chemotherapy or other therapies while they await test results.
This is the most common form of lung cancer, accounting for 80% of non-small cell cases, according to the American Lung Association. It affects smokers and nonsmokers alike. Leo isn’t known to have ever smoked, and he is known to be sporty, playing weekly tennis and swimming.
A Schedule in Doubt
On Monday, the Vatican canceled all of Leo’s audiences through Oct. 20. His planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru now depends on his recovery. It is the longest itinerary of his papacy: just over 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides, with a significant altitude change in Peru.
Oncologists often advise patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery, leaving the pope just the interval he needs. Liu made the stakes clear. “If it is stage 1, he can complete these trips. If more treatment is needed, I would likely advise against the trips.”
The Pope’s Public Role
The Vatican said doctors found the lump during a routine check. Leo took the rare step of disclosing it himself during his Sunday noon prayer, the first publicly disclosed major health problem of his 17-month papacy. Before the operation, oncologists said his prognosis would be “excellent” if doctors caught the nodule at an early stage.
Just weeks earlier, hundreds of thousands of people packed the streets of Paris for an outdoor mass, during a visit where Leo warned about the risks of artificial intelligence. Now the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is recovering on Gemelli’s tenth floor, in a room next to the usual papal apartment, which is undergoing renovations.
Well-wishers gathered Tuesday as he walked through the main entrance and waved. In St. Peter’s Square, Dr. Fernando Daniels III, a 67-year-old physician from Maryland, prayed for his recovery. “I’ve seen miracles in medicine,” he told NBC News.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he and his wife were praying for the pope. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the pope’s voice “on the current issues and challenges of our time is of particular importance and of value to many people worldwide, including in Germany, beyond denominational boundaries.”
The Vatican promised more information later Wednesday. The faithful are waiting for answers on the cancer’s stage, the lymph node results and the treatment plan.