Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nominated by President Bill Clinton, sits with fellow Supreme Court justices for a group portrait at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, Friday. (Photo: AP)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Friday to remove two malignant growths in her left lung, the Supreme Court said.
It is the 85-year-old Ginsburg’s third bout with cancer since joining the court in 1993.
Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York found “no evidence of any remaining disease” and scans taken before the surgery showed no cancerous growths elsewhere in her body, the court said in a statement. No additional treatment is currently planned, the court said.
Ginsburg, who leads the court’s liberal wing, is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days, the court said.
The growths were found during tests Ginsburg had after she fractured ribs in a fall in her Supreme Court office on Nov. 7.
The court’s oldest justice had surgery for colorectal cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer 10 years later.
Among other health problems, she also broke two ribs in a fall in 2012 and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014. She was hospitalized after a bad reaction to medicine in 2009.
Ginsburg has never missed Supreme Court arguments in more than 25 years on the bench. The court won’t hear arguments again until Jan. 7.
Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg rebuffed suggestions from some liberals that she should step down in the first two years of President Barack Obama’s second term, when Democrats controlled the Senate and would have been likely to confirm her successor.
She already has hired clerks for the term that extends into 2020, indicating she has no plans to retire.
