Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
But the decision clearly came as a surprise: While Gemelli has a specific papal apartment that past popes have used, complete with a private chapel on the 10th floor, Leo will actually be staying in a nearby room since the papal apartment is currently undergoing renovations, according to the Vatican press office.<\/p>\n
Spaggiari said he expected the team at Gemelli would perform a biopsy to determine whether Leo has lung cancer followed by the removal of a section or lobe of the lung where the nodule is located.<\/p>\n
\n
Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Both could be done using robotic techniques, and could be performed consecutively, under the same anesthesia, with different specialist teams, Spaggiari said.<\/p>\n
A sophisticated robotic bronchoscopy technology called ION allows a biopsy on nodules as small as 3 millimetres (1\/10 inch), Spaggiari said. Both the Gemelli and the EIO have the technology, which has been available in Italy for just two years.<\/p>\n
Gemelli also has robotic surgical technology, allowing the operation to remove the nodule to proceed \u201cusing a minimally invasive technique,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The technique involves the surgeon making four small incisions in the chest through which the instruments of the so-called da Vinci robot are inserted, he said. The surgeon then controls the robotic arms looking at a screen providing high-definition, 3D views of the surgical site.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very well-established technology. This is something we have been doing for 20 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t known for certain what technique would be used on Leo. Gemelli has documented using both robotic procedures to diagnose and operate in under four hours.<\/p>\n
The biopsy risk is \u201cvirtually zero,\u201d while the surgical risk is very small, carrying a 0.6% to 0.8% mortality rate for patients in otherwise good health with good heart and lung function, Spaggiari said.<\/p>\n
Tests will determine whether more treatment is needed<\/h2>\n During the surgery, doctors would also remove lymph nodes that drain the segment or lobe. \u201cIf all those lymph nodes turn out to be negative, so stage one, then the outlook is very good,\u201d he said, adding that no other treatment would be necessary.<\/p>\n
\n
\n\t\t\tMore on Trending<\/button>More videos<\/button>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The nodule was discovered during regular checks, the Vatican has said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he has had a bit of luck. They found something that was asymptomatic \u2014 a lung nodule, possibly a tumour. He might call it something else; we call it luck,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Recovery could allow November travel to South America<\/h2>\n EIO advises patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery \u2014 which would give the pope just the interval needed to make his planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, depending on his recovery. The current itinerary for the trip is ambitious and the longest of his papacy to date, calling for Leo to clock just over 31,000 kilometres (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides, and a significant altitude change in Peru.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has decided to undergo surgery soon in order to not change his plans for future overseas trips, so there is no need to worry, as it is not an emergency,\u201d said Tokyo Cardinal Kikuchi Tsutomu, who saw Leo on Monday.<\/p>\n
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3 centimetres (1.2 inches) that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. Often, the scans are done to investigate trauma or a lung infection, unrelated to a lung cancer screening. A nodule can be benign or malignant, and oftentimes surgical removal is recommended both to establish whether it is cancer and to treat a malignancy while it is still localized.<\/p>\n
\n
Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Pope was hospitalized for typhoid fever in 1985<\/h2>\n This is believed to be the second hospitalization for Leo, who is known to be sporty and in good shape, with weekly tennis games and swimming.<\/p>\n
As a young missionary priest, he came down with typhoid fever in 1985, soon after arriving in Chulucanas, Peru. The illness and hospitalization were a cathartic moment for him to decide to stay in the poverty and discomfort of Peru after living in relative comfort in Rome \u2014 a decision that ultimately paved the way to his papacy, according to an interview Leo gave to Elise Ann Allen in 2025 for \u201cPope Leo XIV: The Biography.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the book, Leo said he prayed to God to let him die rather than suffer the \u201chorrible\u201d pain of the fever. \u201cI was hooked up to an IV, and I said, \u2018If this is your sense of humour, Lord, I think you could do a little better.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I survived; I recovered, but it turned out to be a very significant moment for me, because it was like, \u2019Well, you\u2019ve already dealt with the illness; you already see what the needs are here \u2014 the order, the Augustinians, the church are telling you, \u2018We need you here; go for it.\u2019 I never looked back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
: World<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Leo XIV underwent surgery Tuesday to remove a lung nodule and the Vatican said the operation was completed \u201csuccessfully, on schedule and as planned.\u201d The 71-year-old Leo returned to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Pope-Leos-lung-nodule-surgery-was-successful-Vatican-says-National-Globalnews.ca_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d21y75miwcfqoq.cloudfront.net\/70c8fc80\")