CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says he’s returning to Cuba for another round of cancer treatment.
Chavez said Saturday during a televised speech to his supporters that he was traveling to Havana in the afternoon for a second round of radiation after recent surgery to extract a second cancerous tumor in his pelvic area. Chavez had another tumor removed from the same general area in June.
The 57-year-old leftist president, in office since 1999, has vowed to overcome cancer to win another six-year term in the Oct. 7 election.
Chavez has not identified the type of cancer, nor the precise location where the tumors were located.
He is a close friend of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and his brother President Raul Castro.