Rome. Pope Leo XIV has returned to the Vatican from the Gemelli Clinic just four days after undergoing lung surgery to remove a malignant cancerous tumor. To the applause of hospital staff, Leo walked towards the exit with a friendly greeting, as can be seen in the pictures. The strenuous operation that took place last Tuesday was not visible on the outside. In front of the hospital, the head of the Catholic Church stood briefly with believers who gave him small, homemade gifts.
This Sunday the Pope wants to say the traditional Angelus prayer again from the window of the papal apartment. It was precisely on this occasion that he unexpectedly announced to tens of thousands of believers in St. Peter's Square last Sunday that he had been diagnosed with a "lump in his lungs" that was in its early stages. It remained unclear whether it was benign tissue, a precursor to cancer or a malignant tumor. According to the doctors, Leo finally had the lower lobe of his right lung, where the tumor was located, removed.
Leo covered the seven-kilometer journey from the clinic to his apartment in the Vatican on Saturday afternoon in a Vatican limousine. In the morning, the Vatican press service announced that the decision to dismiss the pope was based on new test results presented by his doctors. It was originally assumed that Leo would not be released from the hospital until Tuesday.
Leo's recovery appears to be progressing well. On Friday he even telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin and called on him to call for a ceasefire in the frontline town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine.
In the phone call, the head of the Catholic Church expressed his “deep concern” about the humanitarian situation in the small town in the Kherson region that has been sealed off by Russia, the Vatican said. At the same time, Leo reiterated his appeal for peace and dialogue.
The news about the 71-year-old's recovery had already been very positive. Leo underwent blood tests and a chest X-ray on Friday, the Vatican said. “A sustained improvement in his health” was noted. At the Gemelli Hospital, the head of the Catholic Church even celebrated mass again together with some employees.
Leo was treated and operated on in the clinic in the northwest of Rome, which has a separate wing for the Pope. The Vatican published images from the hospital for the first time three days after the operation. It shows the pontiff celebrating mass standing up in a chapel at the clinic. The American native thanked the entire clinic staff for their work, it was said.
The doctors have not yet provided any further information. This means it remains unknown whether the Pope is now cancer-free after the 90-minute procedure. The node removed was a so-called lung adenocarcinoma. According to experts, this is the most common form of lung cancer.
Experts believed that a positive further course of events was realistic shortly after the operation. In the best case, there is only follow-up care after the operation, said Jürgen Behr from the Chair of Clinical Pulmonology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU). The loss of a lobe of the lung is not dramatic for patients. It is accompanied by around 10 to 20 percent loss of lung performance, which is often hardly noticeable in everyday life.
Torsten Bauer, chief physician of pulmonology at the Helios Klinikum Emil von Behring in Berlin, also said that if Pope Leo's lung function was normal before the operation, he would not be affected by the loss of the lung lobe.
It remained unclear, among other things, how big the tumor was, whether there were other nodules in the lungs and whether lymph nodes were affected - according to the experts, all of these aspects are crucial for the future prospects.
What further treatment is required after discharge will probably only become clear after further findings. The particular question is whether metastases have formed in the lungs or other organs. It is also unclear whether Leo will be able to go on a two-week trip to South America in November as planned.
