Amy Howe

Aug 23 2019

Ginsburg has radiation treatment for tumor on her pancreas

The Supreme Court announced today that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently finished radiation therapy to treat a tumor on her pancreas. It was the second time that the 86-year-old Ginsburg, who had surgery to remove cancerous growths from her lung in December, has been treated for cancer in less than nine months.

In a statement released by the court’s Public Information Office, the court recounted that a “routine blood test in early July” had detected a tumor on Ginsburg’s pancreas; a biopsy performed at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – where Ginsburg was treated last year – confirmed that the tumor was malignant. On August 5, Ginsburg began a three-week course of radiation therapy, which she finished today. Ginsburg “tolerated treatment well,” the court reported: “She cancelled her annual summer visit to Santa Fe, but has otherwise maintained an active schedule.”

Ginsburg’s “tumor was treated definitively,” the court continued, “and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body.” And although “Justice Ginsburg will continue to have periodic blood tests and scans,” the court concluded, no “further treatment is needed at this time.”

Ginsburg was previously treated for pancreatic cancer in 2009 and for colon cancer in 1999. She also underwent heart surgery in 2014.

The justices are currently in their summer recess. They are scheduled to resume oral arguments on the first Monday in October.

This post is also published on SCOTUSblog.

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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