Jimmy Carter Says He Has Cancer
By ALAN BLINDER and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter announced on Wednesday that he had been given a diagnosis of a spreading cancer that was detected by recent liver surgery.

“I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment,” Mr. Carter, 90, said in a statement. “A more complete public statement will be made when facts are known, possibly next week.”

The announcement, which revealed few details about Mr. Carter’s condition, came nine days after doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta performed an elective procedure that removed “a small mass” from his liver. At the time, the former president’s office said that “the prognosis is excellent for a full recovery.”

Mr. Carter, who left the White House in 1981 and has enjoyed the longest post-presidency in American history, has an extensive family history of cancer. His father and three siblings all died of pancreatic cancer, a disease that was also found in his mother. Mr. Carter gave no indication on Wednesday whether his pancreas had been affected, and his spokeswoman declined to elaborate beyond the former president’s three-sentence statement.

In a 2007 interview, Mr. Carter said that doctors had long monitored him for pancreatic cancer and other ailments with a regimen that once included regular imaging studies.

Pancreatic cancer is an unusually deadly and painful disease, and surgery is rarely effective for patients with advanced forms of it. Abdominal cancers can quickly shut down the gastrointestinal tract, making eating and digestion impossible, said Dr. James L. Abbruzzese, chief of medical oncology at Duke University, who is not treating Mr. Carter.

Patients with pancreatic cancer are often treated with drugs and radiation not so much in hopes of curing the illness but to mitigate the pain, said Dr. Howard Ozer, a professor of oncology at the University of Illinois Cancer Center.

Mr. Carter has been among the most active figures in American public life, making him a particularly accessible former president. He has continued to teach Sunday school at a Baptist church in Plains, Ga., and he held annual meetings for freshman students at Emory, where he has been a faculty member for decades. Last month, he released a new memoir.

He has also remained deeply involved in the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based nonprofit that he helped found in 1982, which has emerged as one of the most prominent human rights organizations. Through the center, Mr. Carter became a global mediator, leading teams in Haiti, Panama and other countries, and, in 2010, securing the release of an American in North Korea.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as Mr. Carter’s national security adviser, said the former president’s work had been characterized “by deep honesty and deep commitment, not posturing, and a determination to avoid a needless spilling of blood.”

Mr. Carter’s health has been the subject of periodic speculation, including in May, when he cut short a visit to Guyana because, according to his office, he was “not feeling well.” (He later said he had suffered “a bad cold.”)

Longtime aides and advisers to Mr. Carter reacted with sadness to his announcement on Wednesday, but also said they expected him to confront his diagnosis with the same resolve he had brought to the White House and to his life after the presidency.

“The doctors are going to have a hard time getting him to slow down,” said Gerald Rafshoon, Mr. Carter’s former communications director. “He’s had a history of helping people eradicate diseases all over the world. This is just another obstacle.”

In a phone call on Wednesday, President Obama wished Mr. Carter a quick recovery, the White House said.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Rosalynn and the entire Carter family as they face this challenge with the same grace and determination that they have shown so many times before,” the president said in a statement. “Jimmy, you’re as resilient as they come, and along with the rest of America, we are rooting for you.”

美國前總統卡特 癌細胞擴散

美國前總統卡特12日發表聲明說，他最近診斷出癌症，而且癌細胞已廣泛擴散。聲明中沒有說明原始病灶所在，甚至病灶是否確定都不清楚。

90歲的卡特透過在聲明中說：「最近的肝臟手術發現我得了癌症，並擴散到體內其他部分。我將根據需要重新安排行程，以接受治療。」

他本月3日宣布在亞特蘭大的艾莫利大學醫院開刀，切除肝臟一小塊異常之處。

卡特罹癌消息一出，各方紛紛表示慰問。美聯社報導，歐巴馬總統說，他們夫妻都為卡特加油，希望他迅速康復。

卡特上個月出版最新回憶錄「充實的一生」（A Full Life），書中提到家族有胰臟癌病史，他的父親、弟弟和兩個妹妹都因此去世，艾莫利醫院的醫生對此感到擔心。

卡特寫道：「國家衛生總署開始定期檢查我們家族所有成員，而我最後一個手足葛洛莉亞在1990年64歲時死於胰臟癌。沒有任何紀錄顯示美國有其他家族先後有四個人死於這種疾病，而自那時以來，我定期接受X光檢查、電腦斷層掃描或血液分析，希望一旦出現同樣症狀可及早發覺。」

書中說，他們家只有他不抽菸，可能是他比較長壽的原因。

卡特2007年表示，他和其他親戚提供血液樣本給基因研究單位，協助研究胰臟癌。

卡特1977年到1981年擔任美國總統，2002年因為推動社會與經濟正義獲得諾貝爾和平獎。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us/jimmy-carter-says-he-has-cancer.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20150813/c13carter/zh-hant/

2015-08-13．聯合晚報．A8．國際焦點．國際新聞組