Pope Leo XIV has been told he requires no further treatment for lung cancer, after laboratory analysis of tissue taken during surgery on October 13 showed the disease had not spread beyond the lobe that was removed.
The Holy See press office released the findings on the evening of October 21 in a short bulletin from the Pope’s personal physician, Luigi Carbone, and from Stefano Margaritora, the thoracic surgeon who led the operation.
Histological examinations and molecular biology tests completed that day confirmed a pulmonary adenocarcinoma that was localised, the two doctors said. A later oncological assessment found “no further treatment is necessary”.
Leo disclosed the problem himself during the Angelus on October 11, telling pilgrims in St Peter’s Square that routine medical checks had found a small, localised nodule in his lung and that surgery had been scheduled within days.
The procedure at the Agostino Gemelli hospital in Rome lasted about 90 minutes and removed the lower lobe of the right lung using a video-assisted technique. Tissue examined during the operation confirmed what pre-operative tests had suggested.
The Pope left hospital on October 17 and returned to the Vatican, where he led the Sunday Angelus the following day. On October 21 he held his first general audience since the surgery, appearing in St Peter’s Square hours before the bulletin was published.
Adenocarcinoma is the most common form of lung cancer and accounts for roughly 40 per cent of cases. Specialists said before the operation that a tumour caught at that stage carried a strong prognosis, with surgery alone often enough to treat it.
The announcement removes the main doubt over an 11-day journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru set for November 6-17, which would take the Chicago-born Pope back to the country where he served for years as a missionary and bishop. The Vatican has not altered the itinerary since the operation.
Doctors had advised roughly three weeks without flying after that type of surgery, an interval ending days before departure.
Leo was elected in May 2025 as the first US pope, succeeding Francis, who died at 88 in April of that year. At 70 on his election he was comparatively young for the office and has since kept a demanding travel schedule, with visits to Spain, France and Africa.
Europe has been a recurring theme of that travel. His four-day visit to France in September, during which he told UNESCO that artificial intelligence cannot answer questions about the meaning of human life, ended with an address to EU leaders in Metz, the birthplace of Robert Schuman, and drew crowds that some read as a sign of a Catholic revival on the continent.
