Paper apologizes for royal cancer report

London -- The London Evening Standard has issued an apology for erroneously reporting that Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, suffers from prostate cancer.

The BBC said the newspaper Wednesday claimed the 87-year-old royal had been diagnosed with the disease when he was treated this spring for a chest infection.

Buckingham Palace issued a statement after the story ran denying the claim about the royal's health and arguing the report was a "serious breach of Prince Philip's privacy."

The incident was also reported to the media watchdog, the Press Complaints Commission, the BBC said.

"We unreservedly apologize both to him and to his family for making this distressing allegation and for breaching his privacy," the Evening Standard said in its published apology, adding that the husband of Queen Elizabeth II is "not suffering from any such condition."

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman told the BBC, "We welcome the apology from the Evening Standard."

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.