US Senator Edward Kennedy underwent “successful” brain cancer surgery on Monday, his doctor said, as the political icon vowed to return to work and to campaign for presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
“I am pleased to report that Senator Kennedy’s surgery was successful and accomplished our goals,” Duke University Medical Center doctor Allan Freidman said in a statement.
“Senator Kennedy was awake during the resection, and should therefore experience no permanent neurological effects from the surgery,” said Freidman, one of the country’s top brain surgeons.
The delicate three-and-a-half hour surgery, Freidman said, was “the first step” in the Democratic party giant’s treatment plan. After a brief recuperation, Kennedy is due to begin targeted radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston followed by chemotherapy treatment.
Kennedy, 76, is the last surviving brother of assassinated US president John F. Kennedy.
He reportedly told his wife, Victoria, afterward: “I feel like a million bucks. I think I’ll do that again tomorrow,” said the senator’s office, cited by US media.
RETURN
The liberal lion of the Senate said he was eyeing an eventual return to Capitol Hill and to campaign for Obama, whom he endorsed earlier this year.
“After completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president,” the senator said.
Kennedy was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on May 17 after suffering a seizure at his family’s compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod.
Following results from a biopsy, doctors diagnosed Kennedy with a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe, an area of the brain that controls speech.
Doctors have not publicly offered a prognosis for Kennedy. But the US National Cancer Institute has said the outlook for such a diagnosis is poor, with average life expectancy depending on the stage of the tumor, from a few months to up to five years.
CHALLENGE
Gliomas often begin with genetic changes in the brain’s glial cells — cells that support neurological activity — although the source of such changes remains a mystery, according to experts.
A key challenge for doctors is removing such tumors without harming healthy brain tissue.
About 13,000 Americans die annually from malignant tumors in the brain or spinal cord, comprising 2.2 percent of all cancer-linked deaths, the American Cancer Society said. Survival has improved over the past decade partly because of new drugs.
The tumors kills 50 percent of patients during the first year after diagnosis and few live beyond three years. Without treatment the tumor grows back between two to three months after being surgically removed.
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