U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is “resting comfortably” after having undergone a nonsurgical medical procedure and is expected to be released from hospital by the end of the week, the Supreme Court announced late Wednesday.
The 87-year-old justice underwent a minimally invasive procedure to “revise a bile duct stent” at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
“According to her doctors, stent revisions are common occurrences and the procedure, performed using endoscopy and medical imaging guidance, was done to minimize the risk of future infection,” the court said in a statement.
She has been treated previously four times for cancer. The most recent was pancreatic cancer in August 2019 for which she underwent radiation therapy. The other cases were in December 2018 when the justice had two cancerous growths removed from her left lung, and prior treatments for pancreatic cancer in 2009 and colon cancer in 1999.
Ginsburg is the oldest justice on the nine-member court, and her health is closely watched because a Supreme Court vacancy could give Republican President Donald Trump the opportunity to appoint a third justice to the court. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority, with two justices appointed by Trump—Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and Neil Gorsuch in 2017.
Ginsburg joined the Supreme Court in 1993 as an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. The liberal justice said she would like to serve until she’s 90 if her health allows.