Venezuela’s Chavez needs another operation

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez will undergo another operation in the coming days after doctors in Cuba found a lesion in his pelvis where surgeons removed a large cancerous tumor last year, he said on Tuesday.
The 57-year-old socialist leader confirmed he traveled to Havana for the tests on Saturday. Rumors of the unannounced trip had prompted a flood of speculation among the opposition and supporters alike that he was at death’s door.
Chavez’s health is the wildcard ahead of an Oct. 7 presidential election, when he will seek a new six-year term. He has never given many details about his condition so the news he needs more surgery was bound to feed doubts about his recovery.
“There is no metastasis, just this small lesion in the same place where they removed the tumor,” the president said during a televised tour of a factory in his home state of Barinas.
“Because of the growing rumors, I’m obliged to give this information now … it’s a small lesion, about 2 cm across, very clearly visible. This will need to be taken out, it needs more surgery, supposedly less complicated than before.”
He said the next operation would take place in the coming days, but that it had not yet been decided where.
“No one should be alarmed … I’m in good physical condition to face this new battle,” he said. “It has to be verified whether there is any link with the tumor that was there before.”
In a phone call to state TV later, the president added: “No one can say if it (the lesion) is malignant, but there is a high probability because it is in the same place.”
He had insisted he was completely recovered, although medical experts had said it was too soon to make such a call.
Donning a bright red hard hat to stroll around the proposed site of the giant Veneminsk factory, the president joked with workers and looked to be in reasonable health.
A U.S. cancer doctor told Reuters that with such little detail it was impossible to know his real condition, but that the latest turn of events did not look good.
“They have always played their cards close to their chest, so you never really know,” said the doctor, who has followed the case from afar but asked not to be named.
“But a two centimeter lesion in the same space where he had cancer before means there is a high probability of malignancy. This is serious, very significant.”