Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced this week she is “cancer-free” after a bout with pancreatic cancer last year and previously having cancerous growths removed from her lungs.
The 86-year-old associate justice said her year had kicked off fine, telling CNN’s Joan Biskupic on Tuesday, “I’m cancer-free. That’s good.”
The comment comes after Ms. Ginsburg underwent a three-week radiation therapy treatment for a malignant tumor on her pancreas in August.
The treatment began Aug. 5 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The tumor was discovered after a routine blood test in July. The court said a bile duct stent was placed and the justice has tolerated the treatment well.
She canceled her annual summer visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, but had otherwise stayed active. According to the court, she did not need further treatment at that time.
“The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,” the press statement read at the time.
Ms. Ginsburg, though, was treated over one weekend in the hospital in late November after fighting off an infection.
It was Ms. Ginsburg’s second bout with cancer within the past year.
She fell in late 2018 and broke three ribs, which subsequently led to the discovery of cancer in her left lung. The lung cancer was removed that December.
Ms. Ginsburg has had bouts with cancer throughout her career, though, and it’s rarely kept her from the court.
In 1999, she overcame colon cancer, and in 2009 she survived pancreatic cancer.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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