ATLANTA - Andrew Speaker, the tuberculosis patient who sparked an international public health scare in May, said he is preparing for surgery Tuesday to remove the diseased portion of his right lung.
Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer, told CNN in an interview from the Denver hospital where he is confined he will have the operation to remove the upper lobe of his right lung Tuesday, with the expectation it will rid him of the disease.
Speaker became the focus of a U.S. government investigation -- and an international uproar -- when he proceeded in May with a wedding trip in Europe after health officials said they advised him not to fly. He also became the first American quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963 before being taken to Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center, which specializes in TB treatment.
Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tests indicated Speaker had extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, which is extremely difficult to treat. But then, this month, Speaker's doctors said subsequent testing has shown only the less-dangerous multidrug-resistant TB.
Speaker told CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta the surgery, rather than continued intensive treatment, would give him peace of mind.
"If you're developing TB, even after your treatment, it can come back,'' Speaker said in the interview, aired Monday.
"With the amount of treatment I'm going to be on, the doctor said: `If you go ahead and have the surgery, you don't have to worry 10 years from now or 20 years from now or 30 years now if it's ever going to come back.'''
