What type of cancer does hugo chavez

It is worth noting that not all the leaders were diagnosed with cancer while in office - former Brazilian president Mr da Silva discovered he had throat cancer in the year after he stepped down.

But the prevalence of cancer in the region is expected to increase "enormously" by , Dr Cazap says. Dr Cazap says the main reason for this is that a number of Latin American countries are becoming more economically developed, which in turn is bringing rapid urbanisation and ageing populations.

As countries become wealthier, changes in lifestyle also occur, which lead to an increase in the number of people getting cancer. High rates of smoking, obesity and a lack of physical exercise are also particular problems in the region.

So, given what we know about cancer in Latin America, can we be sure the US has not used a secret health weapon against Mr Chavez and the other leaders? Apart from his misunderstanding of statistics - or the "law of probabilities", as he put it - another point to consider is that the different leaders have different types of cancer, and the biological mechanisms behind each are different.

Though chemotherapy and radiotherapy kept the disease at bay and allowed him to run for re-election in October , Chavez took heavy doses of medicines to enable him to make some heavily-staged campaign appearances - in a lot of pain. On the last day of campaigning, standing for hours under a heavy rainfall, Chavez could bear it no longer, and a final rally was canceled. After the October 7 win, by an impressive 11 percentage points, an exhausted and suffering Chavez made few more public appearances before returning to Cuba weeks later.

The December 11 operation lasted six hours and left Chavez in a dire state, with hemorrhaging and a severe lung infection. The cancer came back — but what form the cancer finally took has not been disclosed. Did it metastasize to the surrounding area to become another type of cancer? We just don't know. Follow us on Twitter: globeandmail Opens in a new window. Report an error. Editorial code of conduct. Skip to main content.

Even as Chavez has undergone repeated rounds of surgery and chemotherapy, the kind of cancer he is suffering and where it is located have not been revealed. Here is a brief timeline of his illness:. Few details are released on his condition. June 30, - In a brief recorded statement read over Venezuelan television, Chavez says he had surgery in Cuba for cancer, confirming the gravity of his illness.

The first surgery to relieve the abscess led to a second one to remove the tumor, he says. July 16, — Chavez returns to Cuba to begin chemotherapy.