IN BRIEF : Missouri Coach Returns Home

University of Missouri basketball coach Norm Stewart, who underwent cancer surgery last month, has returned home from Texas, where he went to a special cancer center, Athletic Director Dick Tamburo said Wednesday. Stewart checked in last Thursday as an outpatient at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Officials there said he was not admitted and did not have information on his visit, but they said patients frequently go to the center for consultation and other purposes.

Dr. Walter Peters, the Columbia surgeon who operated on Stewart Feb. 14, said earlier this week that because of patient confidentiality, he could not say anything about why the coach went to the Houston facility. “He is recovering nicely, as expected,” Peters said.

Stewart collapsed Feb. 9 while flying to Oklahoma with the team. He was hospitalized overnight in Oklahoma City, then returned to Columbia Regional Hospital, where doctors discovered bleeding ulcers. Further examination showed he also had cancer of the colon, and doctors removed about a third of his colon and his gallbladder, which contained a number of stones.