DURHAM, N.C. — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was expected to be released from the hospital today a week after undergoing an aggressive and delicate surgery to treat a cancerous brain tumor, his son said.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., told The Providence Journal in Rhode Island that his father would be released Monday from Duke University Medical Center and would head to his home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. The newspaper said Patrick Kennedy made his comments at the Rhode Island Democratic Convention on Sunday.

Doug Stokke, a spokesman at Duke, declined to confirm the 76-year-old senator would be released Monday. Stokke said all updates on Kennedy's condition would could from his family. Messages left with both Patrick and Edward Kennedy's office Monday were not immediately returned.

Kennedy was diagnosed last month with a malignant glioma, a lethal type of brain tumor, at Massachusetts General Hospital after having a seizure at his Cape Code home. A malignant glioma is one of the worst kinds of brain cancer, and malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year.

Kennedy underwent the risky, 3 ›-hour surgery last Monday to remove as much of the tumor as possible, a procedure aimed at improving the success of chemotherapy and radiation.

"It went better than anyone expected," Patrick Kennedy told the newspaper. He added that his father is looking forward to returning to the Senate and working with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on universal health care legislation should the Illinois senator win the White House.

"That is what he is talking and thinking about," Kennedy said. "It adds a great deal of poignancy to his recovery. But that's how he sees it — he has to recover so he can get health care for the millions of people who don't have access to the care that we do."

Kennedy told the newspaper that his father wants to begin writing the legislation this year, so it would be ready if Obama was victorious.

Kennedy's family and doctors have released few details about the particular type of tumor, which plays a key role in determining his survival odds. Some cancer specialists have said Kennedy appears to have a glioblastoma multiforme — a serious and tough-to-remove type of tumor — because other kinds are more common in younger people.

Doctors familiar with the type of surgery have said it almost never leads to a cure, but radiation or chemotherapy treatments have a better chance of success because there's less tumor to fight.

Dr. Allan Friedman — the top neurosurgeon at Duke and an internationally known tumor and vascular surgeon — said after performing the procedure that it "was successful and accomplished our goals," adding that Kennedy should not experience any permanent neurological effects.