Chavez plans surgery after lesion reappears

After weeks of intensive campaigning and marathon speeches, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday acknowledged he’s not as healthy as he seems.

During a televised speech in his birthplace of Barinas, Chavez, 57, said he would be undergoing surgery to remove a lesion that had reappeared near the site where he had previously been treated for cancer in June.

“It’s a small lesion of two centimeters in diameter, which is clearly visible and it needs to be removed and that requires a new round of surgery,” he said during the inauguration of a tractor factory. “They will operate on me again, remove this lesion and verify whether it is related to the previous tumor or not.”

Chavez, who did not say when the operation will take place, has kept his illness shrouded in secrecy. While he has acknowledged having cancer, he has never said what kind or what organ is affected.

Without more details, doctors suggested it was impossible to speculate about the depth of the illness.

But Tuesday’s announcement was not good news, said Dr . Floriano Marchetti, an associated professor at the University of Miami and a surgeon who often treats colon and rectal cancer.

“A locally recurring cancer means that the patient has failed surgery and chemotherapy,” Dr. Marchetti said. “Depending on the nature of the cancer, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to die, but it does indicate that there is a disease that is resistant to treatment.”

In June, Chavez was treated for an undisclosed form of cancer during a trip to Cuba. The president has only said that a tumor about the size of a baseball was found in his pelvic region. The ensuing treatment left him bald, bloated and sidelined for weeks. But recently, Chavez seemed to be recovering as he has reassured his followers he would put up a vigorous fight for the Oct. 7 presidential race.