NPR's Nina Totenberg reports that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery today for removal of a cancerous tumor from her pancreas.

She is being treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

Ginsburg, 75, the court's only female justice, has served since 1993, when she was named by President Clinton.

Nina adds, "Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer was discovered early, in the course of a routine annual screening, but medical literature says even in this circumstance, a patient's five-year survival chances range from 10 to 30 percent."