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CNN Live At Daybreak
Senator John McCain to Undergo Surgery
Aired August 29, 2001 - 07:10 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Senator John McCain is celebrating his birthday today. He is 65, but he is going to be celebrating it in an operating room.
CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta here to talk about the senator's prostrate surgery.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
LIN: Dr. -- good morning. Dr. Gupta, I know you have been pretty busy lately.
How serious is this procedure?
GUPTA: Well, it is luckily not very serious at all Carol. And in fact, most men when they get in their 70s or 80s will develop some problems with their prostrate. About half of the men in their 60s, and I guess Senator McCain does turn 65 today, have problems with their prostrate as well.
And what we're talking about here specifically is a benign enlargement of the prostrate. The acronym is BPH, and is treated very successfully with surgery. At times, medications may be used as well, but in this case his doctors obviously decided to opt for the operation -- usually very successful, home within a day, recovery within a few days. And from what I understand, he is actually planning on being back in Washington, D.C. from Arizona as early as next week -- Carol.
LIN: Sanjay, how long is this procedure going to take?
GUPTA: It takes less than a couple of hours usually. There is -- you know, there is some time to actually prepare the patient, administer some of the sedatives and then recover from that -- a couple of hours.
LIN: Is he going to be awake during the procedure? Or is he going to be out?
GUPTA: Most -- a lot of times they do it awake, Carol. They do give some sedatives, so while his breathing is not taken for him, he is very sleepy, but awake enough.
LIN: And what are the treatment options after the surgery?
GUPTA: Well, usually -- in this case the surgery is usually all that's necessary. As I was telling you earlier, sometimes you can do things, you know, instead of the operation in terms of giving medications to try and relax the prostrate so it's not causing quite the compression on the bladder that Senator McCain's prostrate is. But in this case, for various reasons, they obviously decided to go ahead with the operation, which is also very commonly done. And after that, usually it's -- the problem is usually taken care of.
LIN: Yes, and we should note that they discovered this -- doctors discovered this problem because John McCain was feeling pressure on his bladder. And they did a routine cancer screening with him, and they detected this enlarged prostrate.
GUPTA: That's right. And he is cancer-free. He has had four checks now since his melanoma, which you were talking about earlier, and he is cancer-free from talking to his sources.
LIN: And I -- hey, I was saying that you were pretty busy, because all day yesterday you were part of a really exciting operation -- a son donating -- what -- about half or a little more than half of his liver to his mother. You were outside the operating room.
How are...
GUPTA: That's right.
LIN: ... mother and son doing?
GUPTA: Yes, it was really remarkable, Carol. They are both doing great. The mother is doing fair condition. She was -- her operation finished up close to midnight yesterday, and they started about 10:30, so close to a 14-hour operation. It doesn't make our long days at CNN seem so long.
LIN: No, it doesn't.
GUPTA: And the son started about 7:30 and finished up about 14 hours later as well.
Now, you know, as I was talking about yesterday, it was a carefully orchestrated operation. The son had 60 percent of his liver removed. And basically, at the time that they decided that he was going to be able to donate -- meaning that they looked in there and they saw the liver looked good and everything and they were starting to take it out -- they went ahead and brought the mom to the operating room and started her operation as well. And then when his liver actually got into her room, that's when they went ahead and removed her liver and did the transplant.
And like I said, it all finished up close to midnight last night -- really remarkable, though.
LIN: Oh, yes. And good luck to both of them -- thank you so much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta... GUPTA: Thank you.
LIN: ... for updating us on two big medical stories today.
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