Doctors comment on the pontiff’s news about his upcoming lung surgery.
The news that Pope Leo XIV will have surgery next week left many asking what a lung nodule is.
He confirmed at the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that the lesion was caught early and is well localized. “The doctors consider it advisable to intervene. I have decided to have the operation to remove it, following their advice,” he said.
Many are asking how nodules are found, how they are evaluated, and what leads doctors to recommend removing them.
The condition, commonly called a “spot on the lung,” shows up on imaging as a white opacity against normal lung tissue and is generally up to 30 millimeters in diameter.
Dr. Bruno Vincenzi, head of the oncology service at the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital in Rome, told ACI Prensa, the sister service of EWTN News, that a nodule can be found because a patient has symptoms that lead to tests.
“A persistent cough that has just appeared, expectoration — that is, producing phlegm with traces of blood — or chest pain can be reasons the patient undergoes studies,” he said.
He added that these findings are now increasingly accidental. Patients may be scanned before an operation or a hospital stay, or as part of a screening program, especially if they are older or have been smokers.
Asked why a doctor would recommend surgery, as in the pope’s case, Vincenzi said certain features on the images can raise concern. Spiculated margins — irregular or jagged — can suggest a more worrying lesion and make removal advisable. Well-defined margins, perhaps with calcifications inside, more often suggest a benign nodule.
Dr. Elmer Huerta, a Peruvian oncologist based in the United States and the first Latin American president of the American Cancer Society, said the operation the pope is expected to have is usually done with minimally invasive techniques. “The old thoracotomies, which meant opening the chest, are no longer done. What is done now is minimally invasive robotic surgery, in which a half-centimeter opening is made between the ribs, the robot is introduced, and the operation is done with that,” he said.
Huerta said it is not yet possible to say how long the pope will need to recover fully, because the specific features of the nodule, and therefore the exact extent of the surgery, are not public. Depending on what is found, doctors may remove a wedge of lung that includes the nodule, a segment, or a whole lobe. That will determine the recovery.
On how soon the pope can resume his usual commitments, Huerta said it depends on the extent of the operation. A wedge removal is simpler, and he could fly in two or three weeks and make his planned trip to Latin America. Removing a lobe would be more complicated. The key is the nature of the nodule, which has not been made public.
Huerta also stressed that most lung nodules are not cancerous. A 2022 study found that 95 percent are benign and only 5 percent are cancer. Cancerous nodules have certain features on X-rays, CT scans, and PET exams.
Vincenzi said a histological analysis is needed to determine what a nodule is. When a nodule is removed because its features suggest a suspicious lesion, the pathologist’s final examination of the cells can give a clear indication of whether it is benign or malignant.
Both experts declined to speculate on the pope’s case without precise clinical details. Vincenzi said it is better to stop at the diagnostic stage, because saying more risks creating needless reassurance or needless worry. Huerta said the same thing he tells his patients: go step by step.
The hospitalization planned for next week will force the pope to cancel all commitments on those days, Vatican press office director Matteo Bruni told ACI Prensa. Among them is the closing Mass of an international meeting on the family, held for the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which Leo XIV was to preside over on Wednesday with the presidents of episcopal conferences gathered at the Vatican.
In principle, the surgery would not affect the trip to South America planned for November 6–17, judging by the pope’s own words at the Angelus. Greeting members of the Brotherhood of the Lord of Miracles in St. Peter’s Square, he said, “Thank you for your prayer for the pastoral visit I will make to Peru.”
Follow the Live Updates of Pope Leo’s Health and Preparations for Surgery available at EWTN News.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
