By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had two cancerous nodules removed from her left lung, the latest health issue experienced by the 85-year-old liberal jurist, a court spokeswoman said on Friday.
There is no evidence of any further disease and Ginsburg, one of the court’s nine justices, is “resting comfortably,” spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.
Ginsburg, who broke three ribs in a fall last month, underwent a procedure known as a pulmonary lobectomy on Friday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Arberg said. The nodules were initially found as part of the tests she underwent after the earlier fall, Arberg added.
Ginsburg, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993, is the senior liberal member of the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority.
Ginsburg has bounced back from previous medical issues. She was treated in 1999 for colon cancer and again in 2009 for pancreatic cancer, but did not miss any argument sessions either time. In 2014, doctors placed a stent in her right coronary artery to improve blood flow after she reported discomfort following routine exercise. She was released from a hospital the next day.
The court is not in session until early January.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
