A new twist in the Penn State scandal: Joe Paterno has “treatable” lung cancer. CNN reports:
Some of CNN’s latest report:‘
Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who lost his job amid allegations of child sex abuse against his former defensive coordinator, has a treatable form of lung cancer, his son said Friday.
The family learned of the diagnosis after Paterno’s follow-up visit last weekend for a bronchial illness, Scott Paterno said.
“He is currently undergoing treatment, and his doctors are optimistic that he will make a full recovery,” Scott Paterno said in a statement. “As everyone can appreciate, this is a deeply personal matter for my parents, and we simply ask that his privacy be respected as he proceeds with treatment.”
Paterno, 84, the all-time winningest football coach in Division I history, was fired last week amid the outcry over the handling of the abuse claims.
Treatment options include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen said.
“It is such a difficult, difficult cancer to beat,” she said. “Often, it is found pretty late.”
Cohen said that catching the disease early is crucial to improving chances for survival. White men who discover their lung cancer early have a 50-50 chance of being alive five years later. If they catch it late, they have a 4% chance of being alive five years later, Cohen said.
If Paterno is a candidate for surgery, Cohen told “The Situation Room,” he may lose at least 20% of his lungs.
The Penn State story will continue to break on many fronts — for many years.
Photo via Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.