{"id":304865,"date":"2026-10-14T09:34:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T05:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=304865"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:51:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T05:51:02","slug":"pope-leo-diagnosed-with-lung-cancer-as-growth-removed-during-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/304865\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer as growth removed during surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>Pope Leo has lung cancer, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/oct\/13\/pope-leo-hospital-operation-growth-lung\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Guardian<\/a> the Vatican said.<\/p>\n<p>Leo, 71, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed, with tests confirming a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin, which followed an earlier statement saying the pope&rsquo;s operation had concluded &ldquo;successfully, on schedule and as planned&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican added that the diagnosis had been suspected by preoperative tests and was confirmed during surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Leo was in the operating theatre for about three hours and the operation itself lasted approximately 90 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>In a rare moment of Vatican transparency, Leo said during his angelus prayer on Sunday that doctors had found a small nodule on his lung during a checkup, adding: &ldquo;The doctors believe it would be right to intervene and so, following their advice, I have decided to have the operation to remove it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>All of his appointments have been cancelled until 20 October.<\/p>\n<p>US secretary of state Marco Rubio, a practicing Catholic who has met with the pope, said he and his wife were &ldquo;united in prayers&rdquo; for Leo following the diagnosis. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese also wished him a quick recovery, saying he was &ldquo;a voice for peace, humanity and reason in our modern world.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Leo has lung cancer, according to the Guardian the Vatican said. Leo, 71, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed, with tests confirming a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin, which followed an earlier statement saying the pope&rsquo;s operation had concluded &ldquo;successfully, on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":304860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304866,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304865\/revisions\/304866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}