Pope Leo XIV leaves Gemelli Hospital four days after lung cancer surgery

Pope Leo XIV left the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome on the afternoon of Saturday 17 October 2026. Four days earlier, surgeons had removed the lower lobe of his right lung and confirmed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. Vatican News, the Holy See’s news service, said he had gone back to the papal apartments in Vatican City.

The Holy See Press Office, the Vatican’s communications office, announced the discharge on Saturday morning. It released a statement from the Pope’s doctors, Dr Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora. They said blood tests and a chest X-ray done that morning showed his clinical condition allowed him to leave hospital.

“Following the doctors’ assessment this morning, Pope Leo XIV will be discharged today from Gemelli Hospital, where he was hospitalized for surgery on his right lung,” the press office said in a separate statement. The statement added that he would lead the Angelus prayer on Sunday from the window of the papal apartment. Vatican News reported that before he left, the Pope celebrated Mass in a room set aside for that purpose on the hospital’s 10th floor.

From announcement to surgery

The Pope made the condition public himself at the Angelus on Sunday 11 October. He told the faithful that “the doctors found a small, localized nodule in my lung”. He said it had been detected at a very early stage and that he had decided to have surgery on his doctors’ advice. Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, later told journalists the nodule had been found during routine medical examinations.

The Pope arrived at Gemelli at 1:07 p.m. on 13 October and had surgery that afternoon. The operation was performed by the hospital’s thoracic surgery team, led by Professor Margaritora, the hospital’s chief of thoracic surgery. According to the doctors’ statement, he spent about three hours in the operating room, and the operation itself took about 90 minutes. “To ensure a radical resection, the lower lobe of the right lung was removed using a video-assisted technique,” the statement said. “An intraoperative histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as suspected from the preoperative examinations.”

The doctors said the surgery was successful and there were no complications. Vatican News reported that further tests would be done on the removed tissue in the days after the operation. Kai Times could not establish whether the results of those tests have been made public.

Before the operation, Bruni had said the Pope was expected to stay in hospital for about a week after surgery. He left four days after the operation, on his fifth day in hospital.

Plans for November

On 5 August the Holy See Press Office announced an Apostolic Journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from 6 to 17 November. The Pope is due to visit 10 cities over 11 days on what would be his sixth international trip. He first went to Peru as a missionary in the 1980s, later served as a bishop there and holds Peruvian citizenship.

The Tablet, a Catholic weekly, reported that Bruni confirmed on 14 October the Pope’s “desire” to make the journey. The same report said the Prefecture of the Papal Household had cancelled all papal audiences until 20 October. Kai Times could not verify either piece of information with a Holy See statement or any other primary source. Kai Times also did not find any Holy See statement on the trip issued after the discharge.