VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will be admitted to the hospital late Tuesday morning, ahead of surgery to remove a lung nodule discovered during recent medical tests, according to the Vatican.
The Vatican press office said the surgery will require a weeklong recovery in the hospital.
Leo revealed the discovery of the nodule during his Sunday noon prayer and said he was following doctors’ advice to have it removed. The Vatican press office said Monday that no particular issue precipitated the tests, denying Italian media reports suggesting an inflammation had prompted Leo to have the checkup.
Leo's surgery marks the first major health event of his 17-month pontificate. It was significant because the pope himself revealed the news, in perhaps the most public way possible: at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, with thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican has for centuries zealously guarded the pope’s health and has often sent out confusing information, or none at all, about papal illnesses. Pope Francis tried to change that by being up front about his frailties and musing on his eventual death. But even during his pontificate, information was tightly controlled.
Leo's decision and reveal suggested an unusual level of transparency by the American pope.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 1 inch 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 often surgical removal is recommended to ascertain whether it is cancerous, since performing a lung biopsy by needle can be difficult.
Oncologists say if the nodule turns out to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis is “excellent” since it will have been removed at an early stage.
Unlike his predecessor Pope Francis, whose decadelong respiratory problems made him speak in a whisper, Leo tends to project his voice and frequently sings his prayers.
