Senator Ted Kennedy, seen here last week on a sailboat near the Kennedy’s Hyannisport compound, entered Duke University Medical Center to undergo a six-hour operation today for a malignant brain tumor, to be followed by weeks of chemo and radiation therapy:
The AP reports: “Experts said surgeons will likely try to remove as much of the tumor as possible while balancing the risk of harming healthy brain tissue that affects movement and speech. ‘Almost no malignant gliomas are cured by surgery, but many of us believe that the more you get out, the next treatments, whether they be radiation or chemotherapy, have a better chance of working because there’s less tumor there to fight,’ said Dr. Matthew Ewend, neurosurgery chief at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The surgery was scheduled to begin around 9 a.m., said Anthony Coley, a Kennedy spokesman. The hospital had given no updates by late morning.”
