Jobs assures full recovery

SAN JOSE, Calif. — As Steve Jobs began his recovery from cancer surgery, the charismatic chief executive of Apple Computer Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios took care to reassure employees, friends and investors that he expects a full recovery.

Jobs sent an e-mail message Sunday announcing that his form of pancreatic cancer – an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor – is extremely rare and easily cured if diagnosed early.

This kind of cancer “represents about 1 percent of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year, and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was),” he wrote.

And, never one to miss an opportunity to pitch Apple products, he added a post-script about the company’s big-screen laptop and new wireless networking device: “P.S.: I’m sending this from my hospital bed using my 17-inch PowerBook and an Airport Express.”

Jobs said he would require no chemotherapy or radiation treatment, but he will be off to recuperate during August and expects to return to work in September.

Meanwhile, Apple will be led by Timothy Cook, the company’s executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations. Cook said the current management team has worked with Jobs for many years, and that experience will guide them through the next month.

Shares in Apple slipped 59 cents, or nearly 2 percent, to $31.75 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Jobs, in his message, also was upbeat about the management team.

“While I’m out, I’ve asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, so we shouldn’t miss a beat. I’m sure I’ll be calling some of you way too much in August, and I look forward to seeing you in September,” he wrote.

Pixar will be led by president Ed Catmull will take day-to-day control until Jobs returns.

Apple’s board is confident Cook can manage the company in Jobs’ absence, said Bill Campbell, an Apple director, who expressed relief that the surgery went well.

“The surgery was hugely successful, and the prognosis is excellent,” Campbell said. “We feel very relieved and optimistic about the future.”

Jobs noted in his e-mail that a far more deadly — and common form — of pancreatic cancer is adenocarcinoma.

“I mention this because when one hears ‘pancreatic cancer’ (or Googles it), one immediately encounters this far more common and deadly form, which, thank God, is not what I had,” he said in the message.

Surgery does cure the kind of tumor that Jobs had, and radiation treatments are rarely necessary as a follow-up, according to Dr. Jeffrey Norton, a specialist in gastrointestinal oncology and pancreas surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. “If you remove all of the tumor, there is a high probability the patient is cured,” Norton told the San Jose Mercury News.

Jobs, 49, and friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer in 1976, five years before IBM Corp. jumped into the personal computer market.