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A medical bulletin issued by the Vatican on Tuesday said Pope Leo XIV had been diagnosed with lung cancer. The 71-year-old pontiff has lung adenocarcinoma; examination of tissue removed during surgery confirmed the diagnosis doctors had suspected based on earlier tests.
The Pope was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital to have a growth detected during a routine examination removed. Surgeon Stefano Margaritora, who led the operation, and the Pope’s personal physician, Luigi Carbone, said the procedure took about 90 minutes and was completed without complications.
Doctors removed the lower lobe of the right lung using a video-assisted technique as part of the treatment. The Vatican has not disclosed the tumor’s size or whether the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.
Stephen Liu, a lung cancer specialist at Georgetown University and chief of hematology-oncology at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, said those details are important for determining the stage of the disease and the prognosis. If the tumor is small and has not spread to the lymph nodes, surgery may be sufficient treatment, he said; more extensive spread of the cancer could worsen the prognosis.
According to the Vatican, Leo XIV woke normally after surgery and returned to his hospital room to rest. He is expected to remain in hospital for about a week, and his public engagements scheduled through Oct. 20 have been canceled.
The Pope left the Vatican shortly before 1 p.m. local time and traveled to Gemelli Hospital, about nine kilometers away. As the motorcade passed through Rome, Leo XIV waved from the back seat of a black SUV. On arriving at the hospital, he greeted officials and those who had come to welcome him.
It remains unclear whether an 11-day trip planned for Nov. 6-17, covering Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, will go ahead.
Cardinals elected Leo XIV pope in May 2025. He was born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955 and spent many years serving as a missionary and bishop in Peru. The Pope is interested in sports, including tennis; he is not known to smoke or to have had recent health problems.
His predecessor, Pope Francis, was hospitalized several times in the final years of his life and died in April 2025 at the age of 88.
Leo XIV was hospitalized in 1985 after contracting typhoid fever in the Peruvian city of Chulucanas. In an interview later published in a book by the Penguin Peru publishing house, he said the pain from the illness was severe and that he had asked God to let him die. He later said he had taken his recovery as a sign that he still had a purpose. “I never looked back,” he said.
