"The pope has no brain tumour" - Vatican

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, has announced that he had personally spoken to the Pope, who "is in good health."

Lombardi said the Italian article was "inexcusable and unconscionable."

In a front page story published on Wednesday, the daily Quotidiano Nazionale claimed that a Japanese neurosurgeon had flown by helicopter "some months ago" from a private clinic in Pisa to the Vatican to examine the Pope and determined that he had a "small brain tumor, which can be cured without surgery."

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The article identifies the surgeon as Dr. Takanori Fukushima, a neurosurgeon at Duke University who is a consultant at San Rossore di Barbaricina clinic near Pisa, Italy.

In a statement, Fukushima told CNN: "I have never medically examined the Pope. These stories are completely false."

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Lombardi concurred, saying:

"No Japanese doctor has visited the Pope in the Vatican and there have been no examinations of the type indicated in the article.

There have been no arrivals of external parties in the Vatican by helicopter; similarly there were no arrivals of this type during the month of January."

The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit journalist in Rome tweeted:

Pope Francis is known to have experienced leg pain due to sciatica, for which he undergoes physical therapy at the Vatican. He had part of one lung removed when he was a young man.