Bush Has 5 Polyps Removed in Colon Cancer Test

Doctors found and removed five small polyps from President Bush’s colon during a cancer screening yesterday that forced him to relinquish his presidential powers to Vice President Dick Cheney for two hours and five minutes.

Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman, said the polyps were not deemed worrisome on visual inspection by a team of doctors from the National Naval Medical Center, who performed the procedure in Camp David, Md. In a statement released late yesterday morning, Mr. Stanzel said the polyps would be sent to the Naval Medical Center for testing.

Mr. Stanzel said there would be a 48- to 72-hour wait for the results. He described the polyps as less than a centimeter in diameter each.

The use of a sedative during the colonoscopy necessitated the transfer of power to Mr. Cheney.

President Bush’s physician, Dr. Richard Tubb, oversaw the exam.

It was the second cancer screening of Mr. Bush’s presidency. During the first, in 2002, Mr. Bush also transferred his presidential powers to Mr. Cheney.

That year, doctors found no polyps. But doctors did find and remove benign polyps from Mr. Bush’s colon during exams in 1998 and 1999, when he was the governor of Texas.

The polyps were of a type called adenomatous, which arise out of glandular tissue. In such cases, doctors recommend follow-up examinations every few years to search for new polyps and to check for smaller polyps that may have escaped notice in earlier colonoscopies.

Mr. Stanzel said the temporary transfer of Mr. Bush’s powers to Mr. Cheney began at 7:16 a.m. The procedure began shortly thereafter and concluded at 7:44 a.m. The president resumed power at 9:21 a.m.

Before the screening, Mr. Bush sent a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and the president pro tem of the Senate, Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, in which he invoked Section 3 of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution in transferring power to Mr. Cheney. [size=150][b]Afterward, he sent another letter declaring, “I am presently able to resume the discharge of the constitutional powers and duties of the office of the president of the United States.â€