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Chavez's cancer surgery in Cuba successful

Xinhua, February 29, 2012

• Surgery on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been "successfully" completed by expert doctors in Cuba, Venezuelan Vice President Elias Jaua said on Tuesday.

  Chaves left for Cuba last Friday to undergo a new round of surgery to remove a lesion which his Cuban doctors discovered earlier this month. Jaua said the Venezuelan leader was recovering "in a satisfactory way" from the surgery which was performed on Monday.

  The 2-centimeter lesion was detected in the exact same spot where Chavez had a pelvic cancerous tumor removed in two rounds of surgery in June 2011. As part of the follow-up treatment Chavez received four rounds of chemo therapy.

  "President Chavez is in good physical conditions, accompanied by his family, and is in direct and permanent contact with the executive vice president and the Bolivarian government," said Jaua, who was speaking to the Venezuelan parliament in a special session.

  "After careful evaluations the medical team decided to perform the surgery in the shortest time possible," said an official statement released to local press on Tuesday.

  The statement provided no other details of the operation except that it "had a satisfactory result based on which a recovery plan has been programmed for the next few days."

  Jaua added that the pelvic lesion had been successfully removed and that there had been no complications during the medical procedure.

  The 57-year-old Chavez, who has been in power since February 1999 is seeking to be re-elected for a third term in the October presidential elections.

  Ever since he was first diagnosed Chavez has revealed no details about what kind of cancer he has been treated for, and has remained upbeat about his prospects of beating the cancer.

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