Mrs. Gore Goes Home After Surgery to Remove Growth

Tipper Gore, the wife of Vice President Al Gore, was released from a hospital Wednesday after surgery to remove a growth in her thyroid gland.

She left Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore walking arm in arm with her husband. Both shook hands with her surgeon, Dr. Robert Udelsman, and she kissed him on the cheek.

Neither made any comment before getting into a waiting limousine.

“Mrs. Gore is in good spirits and resting comfortably at home in Washington, D.C., with her family,” said her spokeswoman, Camille Johnston.

Udelsman said results of pathological tests on a small growth, or nodule, removed from Mrs. Gore’s thyroid, will be available next week. Earlier tests, including a procedure in which a small tissue sample was extracted with a needle, were inconclusive.

The surgery Tuesday, known as a right thyroid lobectomy, was much more extensive, requiring general anesthesia, but it was not expected to affect the functions of Mrs. Gore’s thyroid gland.

Located in the neck, the thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate the body’s metabolism. The growth was discovered after Mrs. Gore, 51, sought treatment for an exercise-related injury, Johnston said. She had no symptoms of thyroid disease.

Thyroid nodules are common, occurring in about a third of all people, according to the American Cancer Society. As many as 95% of the growths are not cancerous. Still, about 18,000 cases of thyroid cancer are diagnosed each year, more than 13,000 of them in women. Thyroid cancer is treatable, and many are cured, but it kills 700 women and 500 men a year, the cancer society estimates.