Doctor: Kennedy brain surgery 'successful'

Next: radiation
Typical radiation treatment is five days a week for a month, using 3-D imaging techniques that narrowly deliver the beams to the tumor, affecting as little surrounding tissue as possible.

“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 is a statement issued before the surgery.

Monday’s operation “spells nothing but hope,” Duke’s Sampson said from Chicago, where he was attending a conference of 30,000 cancer specialists. “What we’re seeing with the surgery and this conference is that there’s hope for patients with this kind of cancer.”

Kennedy spoke on Sunday with Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, one of his closest friends. But in his typical fighter’s style, there was little talk about the cancer or his impending surgery. Instead, it was all about a pair of legislative measures — on mental health care and education — that Kennedy has been working on for months.

“He wants to get them done and he expects to be here when they are done,” Dodd said. “He plans on coming back as soon as the doctors will let him.”

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