Former D.C. mayor Anthony Williams was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last month but is expected to make a full recovery, a chief aide told News4.
Williams, who was mayor from January 1999 to January 2007, had a small, cancerous tumor removed from his neck, as he told The Washington Post.
The ex-mayor said pain in his neck this spring led doctors to diagnose him with papillary thyroid carcinoma. That is the most common form of thyroid cancer, according to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
"It's a really high cure rate, full recovery -- every doctor would tell you that. In other words, if you're going to get cancer, which nobody should get, this is the kind to have," Williams, 65, told the Post.
Doctors at Washington Hospital Center removed the mass last month.
"They were rummaging around from some pain I was having, and they found a very small tumor," Williams, now the chief executive and executive officer of Federal City Council, told the Post.
Williams was first appointed chief financial officer of the District in 1995, by then-mayor Marion Barry. Williams is credited as CFO with helping to right the city's financial books.
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As mayor, he is credited with helping to grow the city's population by 100,000 people, and with luring the Washington Nationals to the District in 2005.
