Pope Leo XIV diagnosed with lung cancer

Today the Vatican revealed Pope Leo has been diagnosed with lung cancer. He underwent surgery today to remove the lower lobe of his right lung and the Vatican says that procedure was successful. So we want to talk a little bit more about this with Dr. Jason Cham, an oncologist at Kaiser Permanente Oakland. I really appreciate you being here doctor. So let's begin with the diagnosis. What do we know about this particular type of cancer? So it's a lung cancer and it originates from the lung. There are two main types of lung cancers. There's either non-small cell lung cancer or small cell lung cancer. And a large majority of lung cancers actually fits into the non-small cell lung cancer category. Hard to say what the Pope has since we don't actually know what the pathology showed just yet. Talk to us about the procedure that happened today. The doctors performed this surgery. They removed the lower lobe of his lung. What were they hoping to accomplish here? So typically for patients who have earlier stage lung cancers, either stage one or two, they are typically a surgical candidate, some even stage three. So if they removed at least one lobe, it sounds like he might have an earlier stage lung cancer and hopefully it sounds like they're going for a cure here. Yeah, I mean, the Pope had said that this nodule was detected very early and was well localized. Generally speaking, I mean, we always know that catching cancer early is really important, but how important is it, especially when it comes to lung cancer? Absolutely. And there are some really clear guidelines in terms of how we should screen, especially for our smokers, you know, patients who are 50 to 80 years old who have a 20-pack year smoking history, meaning you've smoked a pack per day for 20 years, should be screened and should ask their doctors for a screening. For patients who are non-smokers, that's a little more of a question mark, and there's a lot of active research going on in terms of how we can best predict or screen for lung cancer in this population. Moving forward here, you know, in regards to Pope Leo, once they perform this surgery, what happens next to try to determine if the cancer has spread at all? Yeah, so they'll look under the microscope to determine the actual stage of the tumor, of the cancer. If he has, you know, stage one, then most likely he won't need any other treatment. if he has stage two or three he might need a subsequent treatment when when we talk though about this particular type of cancer a lot of people obviously when they hear it they do think smoking which is what you were talking about but this kind of cancer my understanding is that it has been known to affect both smokers and non-smokers it is believed that the pope was was not a smoker at all yeah so interestingly i mean there's a rising population of patients who are never smokers meaning they've never smoked before and they they just somehow develop cancer a lot of times for those patients there are what we call driver mutations mutations uh within the DNA that cause the two the the cells to grow abnormally fortunately you know in the last maybe five to ten years there have been drugs that have been developed to target those mutations specifically with a really good effect what you know whether someone you know has smoked before or they haven't here, what do you hope their takeaway is from learning about a high-profile figure like Pope Leo being diagnosed with lung cancer? Certainly, I mean, if you're a smoker and you have one of the criteria that I mentioned earlier, talk to your doctors about getting screened. In patients who are non-smokers, the guidelines aren't as clear because we have a lot of non-smokers too but if you're having symptoms of you know new dry cough uh worsening shortness of breath these are symptoms that maybe you should get an x-ray or some some sort of screening to see if uh you might have some sort of underlying cause and doctor back to the surgery that was done today what does the recovery typically look like when you have a part of the the lung a lobe of the lung removed? I mean, the Pope is 71 and he is planning a rather extensive trip coming up in a few weeks. Yeah, that's a great question. It's really hard to know for sure since I wasn't at the surgery. And, you know, we only know that a lobe was removed. It can, your recovery can be, there's a wide range. It could be from weeks to months, honestly. And so typically if it's a very small surgery, uh, you know, recovery could be fairly short and, and, you know, he can be back to normal. It's, it really depends. I would say weeks, some months, I guess. All right. Obviously we will be closely following what comes next in terms of the Pope's treatment. We appreciate you coming on to offer some perspective, Dr. Jason Cham with Kaiser in Oakland. Thank you for doing it.