(CN) - Arizona Sen. John McCain has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The 80-year-old senator, who only last week underwent surgery to remove a blood clot, is said to be recovering at home and considering his treatment options, which include radiation and chemotherapy.
McCain's diagnosis was first reported by CNN Wednesday night.
According to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, where McCain was treated last week, lab results following the senator's surgery revealed the presence of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor that is the same kind of brain cancer that afflicted the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
The American Brain Tumor Association website says Glioblastoma is an aggressive tumor that forms in the tissue of the brain and spinal cord. The tumors are usually highly malignant because the cells reproduce quickly and are transported by a large network of blood vessels, the association says.
In a statement released Saturday, McCain said he had undergone the procedure to remove the blood clot above his left eye after a routine physical. The procedure was described as "a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision."
The statement said tissue pathology reports were pending, and those reports revealed the Senator's condition.
McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, said in a Twitter post Wednesday night that "the news of my father's illness has affected every one of us in the McCain family. ... We now live with the anxiety of what comes next."
She added, "It won't surprise you to learn that in all this, the one of us who is most confident and calm is my father. He is the toughest person I know. The cruelest enemy could not break him. The aggressions of political life could not bend him. So he is meeting this challenge as he has every other.
"Cancer may afflict him in many ways," Meghan McCain added. "But it will not make him surrender."
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