Pope Arrives at Hospital for Surgery to Remove Lung Nodule

Pope Leo XIV was taken to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Tuesday for an operation to remove a nodule from his lung. Doctors say the procedure and subsequent testing will establish whether the growth is cancerous and determine whether further treatment is necessary.

Following a short journey from the Vatican, the 71-year-old pontiff entered through the hospital’s main doors, pausing to wave to the dozens of supporters waiting outside.

The Vatican said the surgery was scheduled for later in the afternoon and would be led by Dr. Stefano Margaritora, Gemelli’s head of thoracic surgery.

Leo has provided an unusually open account of the health issue, the first significant medical problem to be publicly disclosed during his 17-month pontificate.

He announced during his Sunday midday prayer that doctors had found a small, localized lung nodule and that he would undergo surgery to have it removed.

Medical specialists say the outlook remains “excellent” even if the nodule is found to be malignant, because it appears to have been identified and treated at an early stage.

The procedure is generally carried out under general anesthesia and is expected to be followed by about a week in hospital. The Vatican has canceled all of Leo’s scheduled audiences through October 20.

“These are conditions that can be treated very well, if the words he used accurately describe the clinical situation,” said Dr. Lorenzo Spaggiari, director of thoracic surgery at Milan’s European Institute of Oncology. He is not treating the pope but is familiar with the Gemelli medical team.

Tokyo Cardinal Kikuchi Tsutomu, who met Leo on Monday, said the pope told him he felt well. Leo reportedly chose to proceed with the operation immediately so it would not disrupt planned travel to Latin America.

The timing appeared to catch some people by surprise. Gemelli has a dedicated papal suite, including a private chapel on the 10th floor that has been used by previous pontiffs, but the Vatican press office said Leo will stay in a standard nearby room because the suite is being renovated.

Spaggiari said surgeons would likely carry out a biopsy to establish whether the nodule is lung cancer, potentially followed by the removal of the small section—or, if necessary, the lobe—containing it.

The biopsy and removal could both be completed robotically during the same operation and under a single anesthetic, with separate specialist teams working consecutively, he said.

Spaggiari said Gemelli uses ION, an advanced robotic bronchoscopy system capable of taking samples from nodules measuring as little as 3 millimeters, or roughly one-tenth of an inch. The technology has been available in Italy for only about two years and is also used at the European Institute of Oncology.

Gemelli also has robotic surgical equipment that could allow doctors to remove the nodule through a minimally invasive procedure, Spaggiari explained.

The approach typically involves four small openings in the chest, through which the instruments attached to a da Vinci surgical robot are inserted.

From a nearby console, the surgeon guides the robotic arms while viewing the operating area through a high-definition, three-dimensional screen.

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‘It’s a very well-established technology. This is something we have been doing for 20 years,’ he said.

It wasn’t known for certain what technique would be used on Leo. Gemelli has documented using both robotic procedures to diagnose and operate in under four hours.

The biopsy risk is ‘virtually zero,’ while the surgical risk is very small, carrying a 0.6 per cent to 0.8 per cent mortality rate for patients in otherwise good health with good heart and lung function, Dr Spaggiari said.

During the surgery to remove the nodule and part of the lung, doctors would also remove lymph nodes that drain the segment or lobe. 

‘If all those lymph nodes turn out to be negative, so stage one, then the outlook is very good,’ he said, adding that no other treatment would be necessary.

The nodule was discovered during regular checks, the Vatican has said, and Dr Spaggiari said the pope has likely undergone other tests before being recommended for surgery.

‘I think he has had a bit of luck. They found something that was asymptomatic – a lung nodule, possibly a tumor. He might call it something else; we call it luck,’ he said.

EIO advises patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery – which would give the pope just the interval needed to make his planned November 6 to November 17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, depending on his recovery. 

The current itinerary for the trip is ambitious and the longest of his papacy to date, calling for Leo to clock just over 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides, and a significant altitude change in Peru.

‘I think the Holy Father is in excellent hands at Gemelli,’ Dr Spaggiari said. ‘They have everything needed to keep the Holy Father alive for a long time.’

Kikuchi, the Tokyo archbishop who is also head of the Vatican’s charitable federation Caritas Internationalis, said Leo told him he felt no different than usual and was looking ahead to the trip.

‘He has decided to undergo surgery soon in order to not change his plans for future overseas trips, so there is no need to worry, as it is not an emergency,’ Kikuchi wrote on the Facebook page of the Tokyo archdiocese.

A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. 

Often, the scans are done to investigate trauma or a lung infection, unrelated to a lung cancer screening. 

A nodule can be benign or malignant, and oftentimes surgical removal is recommended both to establish whether it is cancer and to treat a malignancy while it is still localized.

This is a breaking news story, more to follow