Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has a rare and aggressive type of cancerous tumor in his abdomen, his doctor said on Wednesday, and the controversial municipal leader is to start chemotherapy within days.
Ford, who made international headlines with his admission that he smoked crack cocaine while in office, was hospitalized last week after having unbearable abdominal pains. He dropped out of the city’s hotly contested mayoral race last week.
In a briefing on Wednesday, Toronto doctor Zane Cohen said the mayor had malignant liposarcoma, a type of cancerous tumor that arises in fat cells in deep soft tissue.
Cohen, a colorectal surgeon at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, called it a “very rare” and “very difficult” type of tumor, adding that malignant liposarcoma makes up just 1 percent of all cancers. However, he was also optimistic about Ford’s treatment prospects.
“The plan will be, initially, chemotherapy,” Cohen said. “There may or may not be radiation involved; there may or there may not be surgery involved; it will all depend on the response to the initial treatment, and subsequent treatments as well.”
Cohen said the mayor would begin the first of two rounds of chemotherapy within 48 hours, followed by further testing in roughly 40 days to assess the tumor’s response to the treatment.
The doctor said the tumor, which measures about 12cm by 12cm, was “very aggressive” and had likely been present for two or three years.
After being admitted to the hospital last week, Ford dropped his bid for re-election as mayor and was replaced by his brother and campaign manager Doug Ford. The mayor will instead run for a safe city council seat.
In a statement, Doug Ford called the cancer diagnosis “devastating,” but said his brother remained “upbeat and determined to fight.”
Rob Ford has had his own health struggles, having had part of his colon removed and kidney stones in separate incidents in the past. He also sought to lose weight but struggled to get below 141kg.
In May and June, the mayor underwent rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. He emerged noticeably thinner though still obese.
Ford’s doctor would not comment on the prognosis on Wednesday, saying only that the specific type of sarcoma the mayor has is “sensitive” to chemotherapy.
Mitchell Posner, chief of general surgery and surgical oncology at the University of Chicago Medicine, who is not treating Ford, said the prognosis of this type of cancer is generally determined by the size and grade of the tumor.
In general, he said, such tumors are best treated by removing them surgically.
“Some of them can be removed and never come back,” Posner said.
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