What was chavez cancer

Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. Share this —. Follow NBC News. 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.

Also, our bodies are in general pretty good at repairing any damage we do to them, which would complicate things for anyone trying to make a cancer-inducing weapon. And when you need to produce cancer in an experimental manner you need to use huge amounts of drugs or huge amounts of toxins," says Dr Cazap. Along with other health experts the BBC has contacted, he doesn't hesitate to conclude that Mr Chavez's "very imaginative version" of events is "difficult to apply to the reality".

Union for International Cancer Control. During two initial operations in mid, Chavez had a tumor removed from his intestines, and was diagnosed with sarcoma in the psoas muscle that runs from the lower part of the vertebral column to the pelvis, a medical source said.

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 doctor said that President Chavez had a very aggressive form of cancer. On Thursday, Mr Chavez returned from a medical check-up in Cuba saying he was cured. Dr Navarrete treated Mr Chavez around 10 years ago and has stayed in touch with members of the president's family and medical team. In an interview with a Mexican magazine, Milenio, published last Monday, Dr Navarrete said he had information from the family that the president was suffering from a serious form of cancer - a sarcoma - in his pelvis.

The BBC's Sarah Grainger in Caracas says that that is in sharp contrast to the picture the president has painted of his illness. Arriving back in Caracas on Thursday following a check-up with doctors in Cuba, Hugo Chavez said he had beaten cancer and that his body was free of malignant cells.

In an open letter published by Venezuelan newspapers on Friday, Dr Navarrete claimed that police had searched files and computers at his office and he had been forced to flee the country with his family to an undisclosed location.