Cancer Worsening, Edwards's Wife Says

Elizabeth Edwards has long played an active role in her husband's political career, and she said Thursday that she believes it is important for the country to elect him president. The candidate, asked about his mind-set at such a painful time, said managing through a crisis would be a test of any future president.

"Anyone who wants to be president of the United States needs to understand and recognize that there will be very difficult, intense, high-pressure times when judgments have to be made," Edwards said. "And if you're not able to, in a focused, thoughtful way, to deal with this kind of pressure, you're not ready to be president."

Political friends and rivals alike issued statements of good luck. At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow wished the Edwardses well and recalled his recent struggle with colon cancer. "As somebody who has been through this, Elizabeth Edwards is setting a powerful example for a lot of people, and a good and positive one," Snow said during the opening of his daily briefing. "She's being aggressive. She's living an active life."

Elizabeth Edwards had been describing herself the past two years as "cancer-free" before getting her first clue of a problem last week, when she strained herself trying to move shelves in the family's new house near Chapel Hill. When her husband came to hug her a short time later, it was a "big hug that felt uncomfortable," she said.

"I wrenched in a way, and he immediately heard a pop," she said.

The pain sent her to the doctor on Monday, and X-ray scans indicated that she had a fracture on her left side and "something suspicious" on the right side of her rib cage, Edwards said. When his wife called him in Iowa on Tuesday to report that doctors wanted to do further tests, Edwards canceled a planned event and flew home.

It was on Wednesday, in the hospital in Chapel Hill, that doctors told them her cancer had recurred. Edwards recounted the sequence of events in an opening statement to reporters, his lips quivering slightly as he said, "Her cancer is back." As they tried to contact family members across the country before word seeped out, the Edwardses scheduled a news conference for noon Thursday, triggering speculation that he might drop out of the race or suspend his bid.

Carey, an oncologist at the University of North Carolina, has treated Elizabeth Edwards for several years. Carey gave after the news conference a fuller explanation of her patient's condition, at the request of the Edwardses.

Carey said medical advancements have made Stage IV breast cancer a much more treatable illness than in the past. She said she has not settled on the precise therapy for Elizabeth Edwards but said it could include chemotherapy starting in a week or so. She declined to address the question of life expectancy, saying that in some cases the prognosis is not good, whereas other patients live "a number of years."

"This is a very variable thing," Carey said. "I don't have a crystal ball about how she's going to do."