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John McCain has been diagnosed with brain cancer, days after he underwent surgery to remove a blood clot above his eye.
The 2008 Republican presidential nominee’s office and the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, released a statement on Wednesday evening revealing the diagnosis.
“Subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma was associated with a blood clot,” the statement explains. “Scanning done since the procedure (a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision) shows that the tissue of concern was completely resected by imaging criteria.”
The form of brain cancer that McCain had removed is the most aggressive. United States Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy and Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, also had glioblastoma.
On July 14, McCain underwent a “minimally invasive craniotomy” to remove a 5-cm blood clot from above his left eye, according to a statement released from McCain’s office. Tissue pathology reports were pending.
Because McCain has been in Arizona recovering, and not on Capitol Hill for next week’s vote on the Republican bill to replace Obamacare, GOP Senators were forced to postpone the vote until McCain can return, according to Politico.
McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, also released a statement on Twitter.
“The news of my father’s illness has affected every one of us in the McCain family. My grandmother, mother, brothers, sister, and I have all endured the shock of the news, and now we live with the anxiety about what comes next,” the Fox News co-host wrote in a letter.
“It is an experience familiar to us, given my father’s previous battle with cancer — and it is familiar to the countless American families whose loved ones are also stricken with the tragedy of disease and the inevitability of age. If we could ask anything of anyone now, it would be the prayers of those of you who understand this all too well. We would be so grateful for them,” she said, concluding, “He is my strength, my example, my refuge, my confidante, my teacher, my rock, my hero — my dad.”
McCain, who has served Arizona in Congress since 1982, is a three-time survivor of melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer that can spread to the brain and cause bleeding. McCain was diagnosed with invasive melanoma in 2000, and has been regularly screened by his doctors.
McCain previously had two other malignant melanomas removed: on his left shoulder in 1993 and his left nasal wall in 2002. All were declared Stage 0.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE.
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