[xJones]

That said...it says something about the observational powers of Massachusetts physicians that it took them the better part of eight decades to find a part of Ted that was malignant.

That sounds like the inverse of the comment made when Randolph Churchill was operated on for a tumor which was removed. The tumor was benign, and the popular joke was that the surgeons had removed the only part of Randolph that wasn't malignant.(Winston's only son was widely hated for a number of good reasons.)

[RichInOC]

I saw the news at work this morning and my thoughts immediately went to that quote, so I looked it up.

“A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.”

—Evelyn Waugh, diary entry (March 1964), after hearing that doctors had removed a benign tumor from Randolph Churchill.