Pope Leo XIV's lung surgeon, Dr. Stefano Margaritora, told Vatican News that the 71-year-old pontiff's rehabilitation was progressing well and that full recovery from the procedure was expected within roughly ten days, with Margaritora noting that the planned November 6–17 tour through Uruguay, Peru, and Argentina — a journey involving around a dozen flights and two helicopter transfers to elevated sites — faced no medical obstacles, as Leo returned to the Vatican on Saturday following the operation.
Surgeons removed the lower lobe of Leo's right lung on Tuesday. Tissue taken during the procedure revealed adenocarcinoma, a form of lung cancer that accounts for the largest share of diagnoses.
Released ahead of the schedule Vatican officials had outlined, the pope told waiting reporters he was in good health as his car drove off. Inside the hospital, Leo moved through the wards with his surgeon, pausing to meet patients, before making his way out to a gathered crowd whose voices rose in calls of "Holiness" as he approached a vehicle.
During a visit, a 13-year-old girl from Ukraine handed him a hand-stitched doll in the likeness of the pope, telling him the toy had kept her company through a cancer treatment that ultimately went well. She told reporters that a brief exchange with Leo at a public gathering in St. Peter's Square the previous December had helped sustain her through the illness.
In the weeks since the procedure, the pontiff has been showing signs of a gradual recovery. Among his activities that day, a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin took place alongside discussions with top advisers and attendance at Mass conducted in a temporary chapel set up within the hospital.
On Sunday, the Angelus blessing — a customary address to those gathered in St. Peter's Square — will mark his opening act in the role. Seven days after the pontiff addressed the crowd gathered in the square — telling them a nodule had been found and would be removed through surgery — the update arrived, marking a level of transparency over health matters that Vatican communications do not often provide.
The nodule turned up unexpectedly, Margaritora noted, spotted during standard abdominal checks rather than any targeted investigation. Tucked against the diaphragm at the lower boundary of the lung, the growth presented as a minor spot. Margaritora noted that the growth had been caught at an early point in its development, with the patient reporting no breathing difficulties and feeling entirely well, and that a location further up in the lung would likely have gone undetected.
The surgeon described the lobectomy carried out that day as straightforward and free of complications, while also conveying that performing the procedure on a pope — believed to be the first time in modern history that a sitting pontiff has undergone an operation for a malignant tumour — had stirred profound emotions. The Vatican had chosen not to disclose the malignant nature of the diagnosis until after the operation concluded successfully.
Gemelli hospital later disclosed that a tissue sample had been taken from the pope prior to his arrival at the hospital. According to medical specialists, the Ion robotic bronchoscopy procedure carried the potential to determine whether the tumour was cancerous and, in some cases, whether the cancer had reached the lymph nodes. Tissue samples drawn from the tumour and nearby lymph nodes were being sent through pathological analysis.
Those findings, combined with an analysis of the tumour's molecular and genetic profile, will inform physicians' decisions about whether further treatment is warranted. Depending on the tumour's genetic profile, doctors may pursue standalone chemotherapy, a pairing of chemotherapy with immunotherapy, or an oral targeted therapy.
Margaritora noted that the pope had needed minimal medical intervention throughout his convalescence, adding that the patient's drive toward a swift return to health had shown results across every measure of his progress. The surgeon described the outcome as one that merited recognition.
