Teflon John put health info release on hold.

John McCain's presidential campaign has delayed disclosing the 71-year-old cancer survivor's health information. But it has asked his doctors to comprehensively address lingering questions and concerns about his medical history, including the prominent scar on the left side of his face.

"One of the problems has been getting the doctors together and getting everybody ready to meet at the same time," McCain said Thursday during an interview on the daytime television talk show The View. "But there's plenty of time."

The public already has a sense of McCain's general health but doesn't know all the details, particularly from more recent years.

Over the past 15 years, McCain has had four episodes of melanoma, a sometimes deadly form of skin cancer, and other instances of non-melanoma skin cancer. But he hasn't faced melanoma since 2002. His campaign has provided glimpses of a few other issues, such as high cholesterol, though none is particularly unusual for a man his age.

"Just like in 2000, we will be releasing his medical records to prove what the doctors have been saying for a while: that John McCain is in very good health," said Jeff Sadosky, a McCain campaign spokesman.

McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, previously was aiming for the middle of this month, but the tentative date is now May 23.

Three local doctors from the Mayo Clinic's medical practice are expected to participate:

• Dr. John Eckstein, a Mayo internist and McCain's regular physician.

• Dr. Suzanne Connolly, a dermatologist who diagnosed and treated McCain's past skin cancer and can address precautions and likelihood of another tumor.

• Dr. Michael Hinni, an ear, nose and throat specialist and surgeon who can address the cosmetic issues related to McCain's face.

McCain's significant scar and related swelling, which is plainly visible in person, comes from his high-profile August 2000 melanoma surgery in Arizona. Surgeons removed a dime-size localized lesion from his left temple and dissected his lymph nodes to make sure the cancer hadn't spread.

At the same time, they cut out another melanoma on his left upper arm.
One national melanoma expert who is not one of McCain's doctors said such a scar is not unusual given the procedure McCain underwent.

"He had surgery on his lymph nodes that is sort of more extensive than might often be done," said Lynn Schuchter, an oncologist and professor of medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and chairwoman of the Melanoma Research Foundation's scientific-advisory board. "None of them showed melanoma. ... I think he decided to take a very aggressive approach, and that's what they did."

According to a one-page medical summary provided by the McCain campaign, the more complicated operation was "utilized out of a high degree of caution."
The campaign also reports two other cases of lower-risk melanomas, each of which has already been publicized. The first came off his left shoulder in 1993. Another was scraped off his nose in 2002. McCain also has undergone treatment for, according to his campaign, "several" non-melanoma skin cancers and still gets three to four dermatological checkups a year.

The 2000 melanoma on his temple was considered Stage IIA, the second of four stages measuring how much the cancer has spread. The higher the stage number, the more dangerous the cancer is and the harder it is to treat.

"Stage II melanoma patients can certainly be cured of their melanoma," Schuchter said.
Politically, cancer no longer carries the stigma it once did. This year, two of McCain's GOP foes, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, also had bouts with forms of the disease.

"Thirty years ago, that word was a problem," said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "It's not such a problem now. We'll see how it's handled."

In late 1999, as McCain geared up for his first presidential run, he allowed journalists to review about 1,500 pages of his medical history dating to 1973, when he was released from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp after more than five years in custody.

The campaign likely will make the more recent health information available to the media in a similar setting at a hotel near the Mayo Clinic's Scottsdale campus.

At McCain's insistence, reporters will be allowed to study his medical documents for 90 minutes. As many as 750 journalists could take part in a related teleconference.

According to the campaign, McCain takes the cholesterol medicine Vytorin, a multivitamin and, as a heart-attack preventative, low-dose aspirin. His cholesterol level is 155. When allergy symptoms flare, he'll pop a Claritin or spray some Flonase.

McCain enjoys exercising and in August 2006 hiked the Grand Canyon "from rim to rim" and experienced no cardiopulmonary problems, his campaign's medical summary says.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/04/12/20080412medical0412.html