Pope Leo XIV Says He Will Have Surgery to Remove a Small Lung Nodule

Pope Leo XIV announced on Sunday that he will undergo surgery this week to remove a small nodule from his lung, the first major health event of his 17-month papacy. Speaking at his weekly noon blessing in St. Peter’s Square, the 71-year-old pope said the nodule had been found at a very early stage and that doctors had advised taking it out.

“Following their advice, I have therefore decided to undergo an operation to remove it,” Leo told the crowd, according to NPR. He described the nodule as localized and “circumscribed,” meaning small and well defined, the Associated Press and CBS News reported. He thanked the faithful for their spiritual closeness, asked for their prayers and later posted the message on social media.

The operation will take place at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where popes have long been treated and which keeps a special apartment for them. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the surgery was scheduled for the first days of the week and that recovery was expected to take about one week. Vatican officials suggested that Leo might miss the closing Mass of a family ministry conference on Wednesday, the AP reported.

The pope, the first American to hold the office, has no previously known health problems, is physically active and is not known to smoke, according to the AP and CBS News. He still intends to make a planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, though it is not yet clear whether the surgery and recovery will affect it.

The Vatican did not say whether the nodule is benign or malignant, and doctors who spoke to reporters stressed that they had not examined the pope. A lung nodule is a small abnormal spot, 3 centimeters or less across, often found on a chest scan done for another reason, according to the American Cancer Society, as cited by NPR. Most turn out to be harmless. “The majority of lung nodules are benign,” Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary physician at Johns Hopkins, told NPR. Dr. Stephen Liu of Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center told CBS News that harmless nodules can look similar to cancerous ones on imaging.

Galiatsatos added that a decision to remove a nodule usually means a test has raised doctors’ level of concern. Physicians quoted by the AP said a well-circumscribed nodule is less likely to be cancer, and that if it is malignant, finding it so early makes the outlook excellent. An Italian oncologist told CBS News that with early detection the aim of treatment is a cure.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sent her support, the AP reported. In the same Sunday address, Leo appealed for the safe passage of grain shipments across the Black Sea.