Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose health has become a preoccupation of the American public as the Supreme Court hews rightward under President Donald Trump, announced this week that she was cancer-free.
Ginsburg, 86, one of four liberal justices on the nine-member court, told CNN on Tuesday that treatment for a malignant tumor on her pancreas had been successful.
Her doctors discovered the tumor in July after a routine blood test, and a biopsy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City confirmed a localized malignant tumor.
“I’m cancer-free,” Ginsburg said in the interview, adding that she had resumed an active schedule.
This was the fourth time that Ginsburg, who was nominated to the court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, had undergone cancer treatment.
In 2018, surgeons removed two malignant nodules from Ginsburg’s left lung and determined the cancer had not spread. In 2009, she had surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer, and in 1999 she was treated for colon cancer without missing a day on the bench.
The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer that is localized is 37%, according to the National Cancer Institute. But many patients don’t show symptoms — which include abdominal pain, jaundice, lack of appetite and weight loss — until the pancreatic cancer has spread to other organs, according to medical experts.
In 53% of pancreatic cancer cases in the United States, the cancer has metastasized to distant organs, which the National Cancer Institute said decreases the five-year survival rate to 2.9%.
Ginsburg’s health challenges have made Democrats uneasy about another retirement or vacancy on the court while Trump is president. Since taking office, Trump has nominated two justices to the nine-member court: Neil Gorsuch after the death of Antonin Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy, who had been considered the swing vote on the court before his retirement in 2018.