Mahony Released From Hospital; Outlook Good

With his surgeons announcing that his cancer had not spread, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony walked out of the hospital Thursday, three days after an operation to remove his prostate gland.

His voice slightly weak, Mahony told a crowd of reporters and well-wishers who gathered outside the USC / Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital that he was “so grateful to God” for the cancer’s early detection, then put in a plug for a special Father’s Day gift that loved ones might consider giving--the prostate cancer detection test.

“Forget the tie, the shirt and the walking shorts and go for the PSA test,” Mahony said with a smile. “If everybody did that for their fathers, grandfathers, husbands we would be in a lot better shape.”

It was through such a test, as part of a routine physical in February, that Mahony’s doctors detected abnormal levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a chemical marker for the presence of cancer in the prostate. Because prostate cancer usually grows slowly, Mahony put off the 95-minute operation until last Monday so that he could get through the Easter season.

“We have the best possible news,” Mahony’s surgeon, Donald G. Skinner, said Thursday. “The pathology is extremely favorable. This shows the cancer was still confined to the prostate.”

He said Mahony, 62, should require no postoperative radiation or hormone therapy and should have the normal life expectancy of a man his age.

“It’s one thing to walk into a hospital, but it’s quite another one to be able to walk out three days after a major operation,” Skinner said.

“I think it’s a testimony to his physical condition coming into this surgery, his mental preparation, his faith and to his optimism from Day 1.”

Mahony declined to take questions from reporters.

“We just didn’t want to tire him out,” said Father Gregory Coiro, Mahony’s spokesman. “But I thought he looked terrific.”

Mahony began visiting other cancer patients in their rooms Tuesday, a day after his surgery. He made six rounds to patients on his floor Wednesday, Coiro said.

Mahony, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, said Mass each morning in his room with his secretary, Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik.

Mahony is expected to rest and convalesce for about six weeks before returning to work as head of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.