Rome, Oct 24 (IANS/AKI): Leading Japanese neurosurgeon Takanori Fukushima said he had never treated Pope Francis, denying an Italian media report that he had flown secretly to the Vatican and diagnosed the pontiff with a small but curable brain tumour.

"I only met him once and I doubt he remembers me," Fukushima said on Friday.

"So many falsehoods have been written," he said, speaking from the US.

The Vatican indignantly denied as "unfounded" and "gravely irresponsible" Wednesday's report that Francis was diagnosed with a small but curable brain tumour after Fukushima found a 'dark spot'.

The diagnosis was made by Fukushima, who had flown to visit the Pope at the Vatican city, the media claimed.

Fukushima on Thursday removed two posts from his blog regarding two visits he said he made to the Vatican -- one in January, which did not mention a meeting with Francis and an earlier one that contained a photo of Fukushima meeting Francis at a general audience in St Peter's Square on October 1, 2014.