Maureen Reagan Out of Hospital

Maureen Reagan, the 60-year-old daughter of former President Ronald Reagan and actress Jane Wyman, has been released from a hospital after responding favorably to treatment for malignant melanoma, her husband said Monday.

Reagan was discharged from the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica on Friday and flew home to Sacramento, Dennis Revell said.

“She has been overwhelmed by the sheer volume and sincerity of prayers and support from people,” Revell said, “and feels above all else, that support has been responsible for her getting better.”

Reagan was diagnosed as having the deadly skin cancer in 1996 when it appeared as a mole on her thigh. A yearlong course of treatment seemed to tame the disease.

In late 2000, however, she was admitted to the hospital after the disease was found to have spread.

It was initially anticipated that Reagan’s treatment would consist of six 21-day cycles of highly aggressive biochemotherapy, which would have required hospitalization through April, Dr. Steven O’Day said in a prepared statement.

But tests completed after the fourth cycle of treatments designed to kill tumors and the melanoma cells showed that “she not only had no further progression but had regression of the disease in several locations,” O’Day said.