Dr Thomas Stuttaford's medical briefing

Luciano Pavarotti is recovering in hospital today in New York after undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer.

The 70-year-old tenor was preparing to leave America last week to resume his farewell world concert tour in Britain when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass.

They were able to remove it completely and his management company said that he was "doing well". "Fortunately, the mass was able to be completely removed at surgery," Terri Robson said.

"Mr Pavarotti is recovering well and his physicians are encouraged by the physical and emotional resilience of their patient," she added.

All concerts planned for this year have been cancelled but he is expected to resume his tour early next year.

In May Pavarotti was forced to cancel concerts in Canada and Washington due to a set-back in his recovery from treatment to a lower back condition.

He also cancelled eight concerts in April, saying he had been advised not to travel or perform while undergoing back treatment.

The Times doctor, Dr Thomas Stuttaford, said: "The early symptoms of cancer of the pancreas are very serious and usually it is diagnosed too late to be amenable for the surgery that Pavarotti has had.

"The classic symptoms are weight loss, loss of appetite and abdominal pain that radiates through to the back. The back pain is made worse by standing upright but diminishes once the patient leans forward.

"Pavarotti’s prognosis will be very much better than most people who have pancreatic cancer because he has been able to have surgery, but even so his progress will be watched with anxiety by all those who admire him for the next year."

Concerts had been scheduled for Finland, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal in September.

Pavarotti made his debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Boheme at Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 1961, and took advantage of the television age to become the world’s most widely recognised opera singer.

He made his American debut in Miami in 1965 opposite Joan Sutherland in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in 1968, in La Boheme.

He became a star when he nailed the nine high Cs in Ah! Mes amis as Tonio in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment at the Met in 1972. His Met finale, on March 13, 2004, was his 379th performance with the company.

He retired from opera two years ago, saying his weight problem and bad knee prevented him from moving comfortably around stages. But he kept up with his concert career.

Pavarotti joined with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras to form The Three Tenors, who sang 34 concerts from 1990 through 2003. They sang together before four World Cup finals, at Rome (1990), Los Angeles (1994), Paris (1998) and Yokohama, Japan (2002).

Domingo was to be joined Friday night by tenor Rolando Villazon and soprano Anna Netrebko for this year’s pre-World Cup final concert in Berlin.

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