Kennedy’s brain surgery ‘successful,’ doctors say

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) underwent “successful” surgery on Monday, taking the first step in treatment for his brain cancer.

Neurosurgeons at Duke University operated on the 76-year-old senator for three-and-a-half hours before issuing a statement that said the surgery was a “success” and “accomplished our goals.” Kennedy was awake during at least a portion of the operation, which doctors described as a positive sign that neurological damage was unlikely.

{mosads}Doctors said Kennedy would briefly recuperate at the Raleigh, N.C., hospital before starting “targeted” radiation and chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Kennedy issued an early-morning statement prior to the surgery, in which he thanked supporters “as I tackle this new and unexpected health challenge” and saying he expected to stay at Duke for about a week before moving to the Boston hospital.

“After completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president,” Kennedy said, referring to the Illinois Democrat whom he endorsed in January.

Kennedy’s tumor was discovered last month after he was hospitalized for seizures. Doctors diagnosed a malignant glioma in the left parental lobe of his brain, which handles speech and movement.

Senate colleagues continued to send support Monday, notably including Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who survived brain cancer in 1993 and again in 1996 and is now battling Hodgkin’s disease. Specter said he has swapped calls with Kennedy’s wife Vicki to offer support and recalled that a well-respected doctor in 1993 gave him just weeks to live.

“It was a very grim personal experience,” he said. “He looked at my MRI, said I had a malignant brain tumor and gave me three to six weeks to live. So you can have a diagnosis from the greatest professionals be wrong. There are all sorts of stories we’ve heard about people who have predictions of very short longevity that they far outlived.”

Specter said he took the chance to find common ground with Kennedy and push for more health funding for the National Institute of Health.

“I wrote him a letter suggesting we utilize his experience, and to a lesser extent mine, to come back for more funding for NIH,” he said.

Kennedy’s choice to stay in Boston during chemotherapy differs somewhat from Specter’s. Specter was Judiciary Committee chairman while he was battling Hodgkin’s disease in 2005, so he scheduled his chemotherapy treatments for Friday and often reported to work in the Senate the following Monday, where he oversaw the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

The neurosurgeon who operated on Kennedy Monday is one of the country’s best — Dr. Allan Friedman, neurosurgery division director for Duke University Hospital’s Surgery Department. Friedman is a prolific, career-long neuro-oncologist and performs 90 percent of the hospital’s tumor surgeries, according to the hospital’s website.

Kennedy’s legislative priorities are being handled by longtime friends, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), but his chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is not likely to be affected, said one Democratic source.

In April, speculation swirled around Sen. Robert Byrd’s ability to handle the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, because of the age and frailty of the 90-year-old West Virginia Democrat.

But that was at a time when Byrd’s committee was handling a major war-funding supplemental, while Kennedy’s committee does not currently have any such responsibility in the chamber’s flow of business.