Spread of cancer stops archbishop's transplant

Doctors are waiting to learn whether the metastasis was from liver or colon cancer.

MIAMI - Doctors in Miami were forced Monday to stop surgery for a crucial liver transplant for the head of Greece's Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, after his cancer was found to have spread to his abdominal cavity.

Greek transplant specialist Andreas Tzakis, director of the University of Miami's organ transplant institute, said lab analyses will show whether the metastasis was from the archbishop's liver cancer or colon cancer. The latter would be much more treatable.

"This is a very unusual complication. Personally, I was shocked by it," Tzakis said at a news conference at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where the surgery took place.

Liver cancer can spread to the bones, brain and lungs through blood, but a spread to the abdominal cavity is rare, Tzakis said, because of blood's circulation path. This situation is unusual as well because the tumors had not burst, which is another way cancer can spread.

The transplant couldn't be completed because antirejection drugs that patients have to take after a transplant would fuel a tumor's growth.

The 68-year-old archbishop was diagnosed with cancer in June.

A more definitive answer on the nature of the metastasized cancer was not immediately available because many hospital employees were off for Columbus Day. Lab results are expected by today or Wednesday.

Elected church leader in 1998, Christodoulos has often stirred controversy with politically tinged statements.

[Last modified October 8, 2007, 22:00:11]