Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, has said he will have an operation to remove a nodule from his lung, the first time a pope has personally made a medical announcement of this kind. The 71-year-old, who is otherwise in good health and known for his love of sport, said the procedure would take place “in the coming days”.
The Vatican press office said the operation was scheduled for the start of this week but did not give an exact date, and Italian media have speculated that it could take place on Tuesday. The pope is due to preside over a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday morning with Church leaders from around the world, and no changes to his schedule have been announced.
Doctors expect his recovery to take about a week, according to the Vatican. That would allow him to set off as planned on 6 November for an 11-day trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. The tour will take him back to South America, and Peru holds a special place for him: he worked there as a missionary for two decades and took Peruvian citizenship.
A pulmonary nodule is a small growth of tissue in the lung. Most are benign, although a small proportion can be an early sign of lung cancer. Small nodules usually cause no symptoms and are often found during checks for other conditions, while larger ones can cause shortness of breath, chest pain, a persistent cough and sometimes coughing up blood. The operation is normally carried out under general anaesthetic, with the patient breathing through a tube.
The surgery is expected to be performed at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, a large university teaching hospital in the north-west of the city, where popes are usually treated and where Pope Francis spent several weeks before his death last year. John Paul II, who led the Church from 1978 until he died in 2005, was admitted there nine times for a total of 153 days and joked that the hospital had become “Vatican number three”. The Vatican keeps a top-floor apartment at Gemelli, reached by a long corridor guarded by Italian and Vatican police. The suite is reported to include a room for medical staff, a kitchen, a bathroom, rest areas and a small chapel.
