Berlusconi responding well to treatment says doctor

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 8 - Silvio Berlusconi's doctor Alberto Zangrillo said Saturday that the ex-premier was responding well to treatment after being admitted to the intensive care unit of Milan's San Raffaele on Wednesday.
    The media billionaire and Forza Italia (FI) leader is being treated for a lung infection and chronic leukemia.
    "I am serene because we are doing our best," said Zangrillo, who, in addition to being Berlusconi's personal doctor, is also the head of the intensive care unit he is in.
    "And I am serene because I have before me a patient who is a great friend, which I can deny and so there is also my personal involvement, but he is also a person who is used to always giving the best possible response.
    "So, even with a serious pathology and in a very difficult situation, he is responding well to the treatment".
    Berlusconi, 86, is already asking to go home, medical sources said on Saturday, adding that his condition is stable and he still has a lung infection.
    The ex-premier's close aide Gianni Letta said Saturday that Berlusconi was better than he expected after visiting him.
    "I visited him in intensive care," Letta told reporters.
    "We spoke and I found him better than I though I would.
    "We can wish him a Happy Easter because the road of the rebirth, if not the resurrection, has been taken".
    Paolo Barelli, the FI leader in the Lower House, told La7 television on Saturday that the ex-premier's third night in intensive care "passed quietly".
    "Berlusconi is responding to the therapies, this is very important and gives us hope," he added.
    On Friday Berlusconi told Augusto Minzolini, editor of the former Berlusconi family newspaper Il Giornale, via telephone that "it's tough", but that he would "make it this time too".
    (ANSA).