Ginsburg Details Regimen After Cancer Surgery

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who underwent colon cancer surgery last September, said Friday that she has been going through “precautionary” chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and that they have not interfered with her work.

Ginsburg said, “In consultation with Dr. Leonard Saltz of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center in New York, I have been undergoing a precautionary, post-surgery course of chemotherapy and radiation at Washington Hospital Center.”

A 1993 appointee of President Clinton, Ginsburg, 66, said she began the treatments in October and will finish in June. They “have not affected my schedule at the court,” she said, referring to her Sept. 17 operation as “a complete, successful, surgical removal of a colorectal cancer.” Physicians soon after surgery said the cancer had not spread beyond her colon.

Ginsburg, who was on the bench for the start of the term in October and has not missed a day since, said, “Following the treatments, it is anticipated that I will require only routine examinations to assure my continuing good health.”

Ginsburg issued the statement in response to inquiries about her health. The court’s second female justice has been nationally known since the 1970s when, as a women’s rights advocate, she successfully convinced the high court to provide more protection for women facing discrimination.