HOENIX - Senator John S. McCain spent more than five hours in surgery yesterday to remove skin cancer from his temple and upper arm.
The surgery followed tests that found no signs that the cancer, melanoma, had spread beyond those areas. Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer and is usually caused by exposure to the sun.
McCain's internist, Dr. John Eckstein, said yesterday that the surgery at the Mayo Clinic near Phoenix had gone exactly as expected without complications.
''We are pleased to let you know the preliminary report on the lymph nodes ... was clear without any evidence of melanoma cells. However, it will take several days to fully evaluate the tissue,'' Eckstein said.
McCain's wife, Cindy, said the senator was cracking jokes in his room after the surgery.
''All of my prayers have been answered,'' she said. ''My husband is in wonderful shape.''
McCain will remain in the hospital for two to three days, Eckstein said.
McCain had a similar cancerous lesion removed from his shoulder in 1993.
Melanoma specialists have said McCain's earlier test results were good news. Lymph nodes removed yesterday from around the cancerous lesions were being tested to help determine whether the surgery was the only treatment necessary to remove the cancer.
If the cancer has reached one or more of the lymph nodes, treatment is more complicated and less likely to cure the cancer, melanoma specialists said. Options include anticancer drugs and stimulating the immune system to try to fight the cancer.
The outlook would have been much worse if the cancer had spread to McCain's organs, since that stage of melanoma is extremely difficult to treat, said Dr. John Glaspy, a researcher at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center.
Doctors found the melanoma after McCain left the Republican National Convention to have biopsies performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington.
McCain will be 64 on Aug. 29.
