Cancer hit Venezuelan President Chavez flying to Cuba for radiation therapy

Caracas (Venezuela), Mar 24 (ANI): Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he is flying to Cuba to begin radiation therapy on Sunday, a month after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.

"Tonight, I'm leaving for Havana," Chavez said on Saturday.

"I've decided, on the recommendation of my medical team and also my government political team, to begin now, as we're going to begin on Sunday, radiation therapy treatment," CBS News quoted him, as saying.

Chavez described it as a "complement to the surgery that I underwent" last month.

He has been recovering from a February 26 surgery in Havana that removed a tumor from the same spot in his pelvic region where another tumor was extracted eight months earlier.

Chavez has not identified the type of cancer nor the location in his pelvic region where the tumors have been removed.

After he was diagnosed with cancer in Cuba last year, Chavez underwent an initial surgery in June that removed a tumor the size of a baseball. (ANI)