US Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left hospital following cancer surgery and returned home, a court spokeswoman says.

Ms Ginsburg, 85, had surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her left lung in New York on Friday.

The most senior justice on the Supreme Court’s liberal wing has previously had surgery to treat colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Justices on the highest court in the US serve for life or until they retire.

Supporters of Ms Ginburg have expressed concern that if anything happened to her, she could be replaced by a conservative justice.

“Justice Ginsburg was discharged from the hospital yesterday [25 December] and is recuperating at home,” Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Why was she in hospital?

The malignant nodules were initially discovered when Ms Ginsburg broke three ribs in November, an earlier statement released by the court said.

Both were successfully removed at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and afterwards “there was no evidence of any remaining disease”, it added.

No further treatment is planned.

What is her background?

Ms Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.

She had previously focused her work on women’s rights and started the first law journal dedicated to the topic.

Some of her legal opinions, coupled with her refusal to step down during the Obama era, have seen her gain popularity in some quarters and earned her the nickname Notorious RBG.

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