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Cancer op for president of Argentina
Source: Agencies |
December 29, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ARGENTINA'S President Cristina Fernandez has thyroid cancer, but test results showed yesterday that it remains limited to a lobe in the right side of her neck and has not spread into her lymph nodes, her spokesman said.
Fernandez, 58, will undergo surgery on January 4 and then take 20 days of medical leave, during which Vice President Amado Boudou will run the country.
Meanwhile, she will keep up her normal routine, spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro suggested, noting that she will appear at several events today as planned.
Scoccimarro said the cancer was discovered during a routine exam on December 22, and that Fernandez received the results from follow-up tests hours before the announcement.
This kind of thyroid cancer is highly survivable, with more than 95 percent of patients living at least 10 years after detection, according to the US National Institutes of Health.
The usual treatment is to surgically remove as much of the cancerous material as possible, and then follow up with radioactive iodide treatments, taken orally. This helps to destroy any remnants of the cancerous gland and provide for clearer images showing any additional cancer, the NIH said on its Web site.
Afterwards, patients usually take medication - levothyroxine sodium - for the rest of their lives to replace a hormone that the thyroid glands produce. Blood tests every six to 12 months to measure thyroid levels also are recommended.
Fernandez is the latest in a number of South American leaders to be diagnosed with cancer. Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil all have undergone treatments recently.
Presidential doctors Luis Buonomo and Marcelo Ballesteros said the operation will be led by Dr Pedro Saco, chief of the surgery department at Hospital Austral and chief of the Head and Neck Service of the oncology institute at the University of Buenos Aires.
Thyroid surgery is not without risk: the NIH says a nerve that controls the vocal cords can be damaged, and doctors sometimes accidentally remove the parathyroid gland, which helps regulate blood calcium levels.
Fernandez, 58, will undergo surgery on January 4 and then take 20 days of medical leave, during which Vice President Amado Boudou will run the country.
Meanwhile, she will keep up her normal routine, spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro suggested, noting that she will appear at several events today as planned.
Scoccimarro said the cancer was discovered during a routine exam on December 22, and that Fernandez received the results from follow-up tests hours before the announcement.
This kind of thyroid cancer is highly survivable, with more than 95 percent of patients living at least 10 years after detection, according to the US National Institutes of Health.
The usual treatment is to surgically remove as much of the cancerous material as possible, and then follow up with radioactive iodide treatments, taken orally. This helps to destroy any remnants of the cancerous gland and provide for clearer images showing any additional cancer, the NIH said on its Web site.
Afterwards, patients usually take medication - levothyroxine sodium - for the rest of their lives to replace a hormone that the thyroid glands produce. Blood tests every six to 12 months to measure thyroid levels also are recommended.
Fernandez is the latest in a number of South American leaders to be diagnosed with cancer. Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil all have undergone treatments recently.
Presidential doctors Luis Buonomo and Marcelo Ballesteros said the operation will be led by Dr Pedro Saco, chief of the surgery department at Hospital Austral and chief of the Head and Neck Service of the oncology institute at the University of Buenos Aires.
Thyroid surgery is not without risk: the NIH says a nerve that controls the vocal cords can be damaged, and doctors sometimes accidentally remove the parathyroid gland, which helps regulate blood calcium levels.
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