Apple CEO has just six weeks to live: Report

LONDON - Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs has terminal pancreatic cancer and may live for just six more weeks, a media report said Thursday.

The 55-year-old Jobs in January announced that at his request, the board of directors granted him a medical leave of absence so that he could focus on his health.

Since then, employees have said Jobs can still be seen at the company’s headquarters in California and is also calling all the strategic shots from his home.

Now, new pictures have been published in the tabloid National Enquirer, which suggest things may be worse for the the man behind the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

The report said Jobs is stricken with pancreatic cancer and may have just six weeks to live.

The new photos show him looking painfully frail and weak, with his jeans and dark top hanging loosely on his six-feet-two-inches, frail body, the Daily Mail reported.

The pictures were not yet available online, but Jobs’s weight is said to have dropped from a pre-cancer 175 pounds to 130 pounds now, according to the National Enquirer.

His thinning hair was a sign of the effects of chemotherapy used to treat the disease.

The photos, which were taken Feb 8, showed Jobs going for breakfast with his wife Laurene Powell before heading to the Stanford Cancer Centre in California.

Jerome Spunberg, a doctor, said: “Mr. Jobs is most likely getting outpatient chemotherapy at Stanford because the cancer has recurred.”

Gabe Mirkin, a physician with 40 years’ experience, said: “He is terminal. What you are seeing is extreme muscle wasting from calorie deprivation, most likely caused by cancer. He has no muscle left in his buttocks, which is the last place to go.”

“He definitely appears to be in the terminal stages of his life from these photos. I would be surprised if he weighed more than 130 pounds.”

Critical care physician Samuel Jacobson also said: “Judging from the photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks.”

A source, who recently saw Jobs, added: “He is very frail, moving like a weak, feeble old man. He weaves back and forth when he walks, as if he is having trouble keeping his balance, and the pain of every step is evident on his face.”

The Apple CEO, who is worth $6 billion, is currently on his third medical leave, and has battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer for seven years and had a liver transplant in 2009.

An Apple spokesman did not comment on the new photos.