Billy Carter Has Inoperable Cancer

ATLANTA — Billy Carter, brother of former President Jimmy Carter, has inoperable cancer of the pancreas, the same disease that killed his father and his sister, his doctor said Friday.

“The prognosis is poor,” said Dr. R. Martin York, a cancer specialist at Emory University Hospital and Billy Carter’s attending physician.

Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, en route to meet with Pope John Paul II, detoured to Atlanta for a private meeting with Billy before heading for Columbia, S.C., for the appointment with the Pope, according to hospital officials and the Secret Service.

Emory spokeswoman Catherine Grant said Billy Carter, 50, underwent surgery to relieve a blockage of the pancreatic bile duct. The surgery found the cancer was inoperable.

“It is impossible to put a time on survival with pancreatic cancer,” York said. “I have had patients who have survived as long as two or three years, but for most, it is not as long as that.”

The Carters’ sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, died in 1983 of pancreatic cancer. Their father, James Earl Carter, died of the disease in 1953.

Carter was admitted to the hospital with symptoms of jaundice. Tests revealed the obstruction of the bile duct, causing jaundice, and a biopsy identified the cancer.