Senator Kennedy has brain cancer: doctors

Veteran US Senator Edward M Kennedy, who was hospitalised after suffering a seizure over the weekend, has been diagnosed with brain cancer.

Veteran US Senator Edward M Kennedy, who was hospitalised after suffering a seizure over the weekend, has been diagnosed with brain cancer.

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Doctors at the hospital in Boston, where he is taking treatment, said Tuesday the Massachusetts Senator who has been an enduring figure in the Democratic party politics, has a tumor in his left parietal lobe. Initial results from a biopsy of the brain showed the seizure he suffered was caused by a malignant glioma, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Malignant glioma is a type of brain cancer. Average survival can range from less than a year for very advanced and aggressive types to about five years for slower growing types.

Doctors will decide the course of treatment for Kennedy, 76, after more tests. Usually it is a combination of radiation and chemotherapy.

"He has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital," said a joint statement issued by Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary-care physician.

The doctors said Kennedy will remain in the hospital "for the next couple of days according to routine protocol."

Despite his age, Ted Kennedy, as he is known, maintains an active schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Barack Obama, the Illinois senator likely to become the Democratic nominee for president.

His son, Patrick J Kennedy, is a Congressman.