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Powell's Cancer Surgery

Aired December 15, 2003 - 10:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We start the hour with word that Colin Powell is undergoing surgery for prostate cancer this morning. The 66-year-old secretary of state is expected to remain in the hospital for several days.
For more on this developing story, we bring in medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Good morning. What do we know.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, it sounds like he's in the operating room right now. I actually talked to a specialist in this area, Dr. Shaw, up in Michigan, talked about the fact that most likely, this is a localized cancer that he has. And most likely, the secretary of state underwent a biopsy sometime within the last few weeks, that came back positive for cancer, most likely localized, prompting surgeons now to do an operation.

Really, there's sort of three different things that can occur doing the situation after a biopsy comes back positive. One, it sounds like he's having, which is the operation. There is also something known as an internal beam radiation. That's a sort of seeding sort of thing, as well. And then finally, watchful waiting, hearing that the secretary of state undergoing the operation right now for cancer is not something we know quite a bit about. We have certainly seen a lot of high profile cases.

Outcome is very good with this sort of thing. Typically, after this sort of operation, in addition to removing parts of the prostate, he may have to remove some of his lymph nodes removed as well, basically for staging purposes, to see just how serious a cancer this is.

But there's a lot of things we don't know at this point, Daryn. We don't know exactly what kind of cancer this is. Some of that information might only come back only after the operation is performed. We also don't know exactly what the operation is he is having. We just know that he's in the OR at this time.

KAGAN: We are learning just about a half hour ago. One thing we are just learning is the State Department said he was diagnosed in late September. Does that tell us anything? That it wasn't an immediate danger that he had to have surgery?

GUPTA: Most of the situations are like that. One thing we've learned, again, that doctors learn a lot about prostate cancer over the years, with regard to outcomes and survival. It's a timely sort of operation, and it's usually not a sort of rush them off to the operating room sort of situation. Sometimes, they may have waited to see what the prostate's specific antigen. That's the PSA test a lot of people have heard of, what that is doing, as well. All sorts of things, a biopsy may have been done at that time. Don't know about that. But oftentimes, outcome pretty good, rush to surgery not as important.

KAGAN: We should find out more about what Colin Powell faces and how serious it is coming out of the operating room. Meanwhile, you need to get into an operating room, your other job, your other day job. We'll let you go.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 15, 2003 - 10:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We start the hour with word that Colin Powell is undergoing surgery for prostate cancer this morning. The 66-year-old secretary of state is expected to remain in the hospital for several days.
For more on this developing story, we bring in medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Good morning. What do we know.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, it sounds like he's in the operating room right now. I actually talked to a specialist in this area, Dr. Shaw, up in Michigan, talked about the fact that most likely, this is a localized cancer that he has. And most likely, the secretary of state underwent a biopsy sometime within the last few weeks, that came back positive for cancer, most likely localized, prompting surgeons now to do an operation.

Really, there's sort of three different things that can occur doing the situation after a biopsy comes back positive. One, it sounds like he's having, which is the operation. There is also something known as an internal beam radiation. That's a sort of seeding sort of thing, as well. And then finally, watchful waiting, hearing that the secretary of state undergoing the operation right now for cancer is not something we know quite a bit about. We have certainly seen a lot of high profile cases.

Outcome is very good with this sort of thing. Typically, after this sort of operation, in addition to removing parts of the prostate, he may have to remove some of his lymph nodes removed as well, basically for staging purposes, to see just how serious a cancer this is.

But there's a lot of things we don't know at this point, Daryn. We don't know exactly what kind of cancer this is. Some of that information might only come back only after the operation is performed. We also don't know exactly what the operation is he is having. We just know that he's in the OR at this time.

KAGAN: We are learning just about a half hour ago. One thing we are just learning is the State Department said he was diagnosed in late September. Does that tell us anything? That it wasn't an immediate danger that he had to have surgery?

GUPTA: Most of the situations are like that. One thing we've learned, again, that doctors learn a lot about prostate cancer over the years, with regard to outcomes and survival. It's a timely sort of operation, and it's usually not a sort of rush them off to the operating room sort of situation. Sometimes, they may have waited to see what the prostate's specific antigen. That's the PSA test a lot of people have heard of, what that is doing, as well. All sorts of things, a biopsy may have been done at that time. Don't know about that. But oftentimes, outcome pretty good, rush to surgery not as important.

KAGAN: We should find out more about what Colin Powell faces and how serious it is coming out of the operating room. Meanwhile, you need to get into an operating room, your other job, your other day job. We'll let you go.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com