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AP Gets a Look at McCain's Medical Records
Published: May 23, 2008 9:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON Three-time melanoma survivor John McCain appears cancer-free, has a strong heart and is in otherwise general good health, according to eight years of medical records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting remains at risk for developing new skin cancers, and gets a thorough check by a Mayo Clinic dermatologist every few months.
"I do not see any worrisome lesions," Dr. Suzanne Connolly concluded after McCain's most recent exam, on May 12.
The details of McCain's health are contained in 1,173 pages of medical documents spanning 2000 to 2008 that his campaign made available to the AP to make the case that he's healthy enough to serve as president, as well as to counter the notion that he's too old. The Arizona senator will turn 72 in August and would be the oldest elected first-term president.
Like many aging Americans, McCain takes medicine to keep his cholesterol in check.
But Mayo internist Dr. John Eckstein, his longtime personal physician, lauded McCain's performance on a heart stress test - sweating it out for 10 minutes when Eckstein routinely sees patients decades younger quit at five or seven minutes.
"I think physiologically he is considerably younger than his chronologic age based on his cardiovascular fitness," Eckstein said in an interview Thursday. "I got a call from the cardiologist who said that he had not seen anyone that age exercise for that long in a long time."
McCain's most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.
The Vietnam veteran has degenerative arthritis from war injuries that might mean a future joint replacement. His blood pressure and weight were healthy, and his cholesterol good but not optimal - and he switched medication from the controversial Vytorin that made headlines this past winter to a proven standby, simvastatin.
His likely Democratic rival, Barack Obama, will be 47 in August. Obama, lean and agile and a frequent basketball player, says he has quit smoking. Neither he nor Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton has released health records.
It is McCain's three bouts of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, that raise the biggest health concerns. He has had four separate spots of melanoma removed from his head and arm on three occasions - in 1993, 2000 and 2002. Three spots were very early stage, when they were in the uppermost skin surface and easily cut out.
But one, on his left temple in 2000, was invasive melanoma, what doctors call an "intermediate risk" melanoma because of its thickness - 2.2 millimeters. McCain required delicate surgery to remove and examine lymph nodes that showed no sign of spread.
"We don't have a crystal ball, but we have no way to say anything at the present time would preclude him from running for office," said dermatologist Connolly.
The 10-year survival rate for that intermediate melanoma is 65 percent, said Dr. Stuart Lessin, director of the melanoma risk-assessment program at Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center, who was not involved in McCain's care.
"He's not cured," Lessin said. Still, the biggest risk of recurrence is in the first few years, so at eight years out, the chances of melanoma returning at that spot and killing him is "in the single digits," he added. "He's pretty much out of the woods."
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