Would President McCain survive a full-term?

Among the many travails of John McCain's faltering bid for the presidency is the semi-stifled suspicion that his chances of lasting through a four-year term are not rosy. Officially, the Obama campaign has distanced itself from allegations that McCain might be a lot sicker than he lets on. Supporters have been less restrained in suggesting that the Reaper is but a step behind the 72-year-old senator from Arizona.

In the past 15 years, McCain has had four melanomas removed. The most dangerous was the one taken from his temple in 2000, classified by his doctors as an invasive melanoma, stage IIA, on a standard scale that makes stage IV the most serious. The 2000 surgery left McCain not only with a puffy jaw but also with a scar down his neck.

Back in May, the McCain campaign sought

to dispel concerns about McCain's health by permitting severely limited inspection of his medical records, plus a carefully controlled press conference with his doctors at the Mayo clinic in Arizona.

"Many questions," declared Dr John Eckstein, "have been asked about the removal of the invasive melanoma from Senator McCain's left lower temple in August 2000. To summarise, there is no evidence of metastasis or recurrence of the invasive melanoma as we approach the eighth anniversary of that operation."

The press conference received relatively upbeat treatment. For stage IIA melanoma, the survival rate 10 years after diagnosis is about 65 per cent. But the outlook is much better, as McCain's doctors noted, for patients who have already survived more than seven years.

Reporters did note that two pathologists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who examined the melanoma specimen from McCain's left temple in 2000, suggested there were two melanomas on his temple, not