
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993                   TAG: 9306150136
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA                                LENGTH: Short

DOCTORS REMOVE BRAIN TUMOR FROM SPECTER

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, best known for his tough questioning of Anita Hill and proposing the single-bullet theory in the John F. Kennedy assassination, underwent surgery Monday to remove a brain tumor.

Doctors who performed the 2 1/2-hour operation on the 63-year-old Republican senator from Pennsylvania said all signs indicated the growth was benign.

"The senator is awake and talking and appears in good spirits and neurologically normal," said Specter's son, Shanin. He added that the operation at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania went well.

Shanin Specter said the growth apparently was a meningioma, a slow-growing, hard tumor that's rarely cancerous. Tests to make a final determination of whether the tumor was malignant or benign will take several days.

The 2-inch tumor was attached to the skull behind the senator's forehead, below the hairline on the left side, which is less threatening than a growth actually on the brain, Shanin Specter said.

The tumor was discovered Friday at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., during an imaging test that Specter wanted doctors to take because of pains in his face and a tightness in his collarbone area, Shanin Specter said.

by CNB