Hugo Chavez to return to Cuba for treatment

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will return to Cuba to continue medical treatment, the country’s top legislator said.

The 58-year-old leader, who was re-elected in October for a third term, staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from an undisclosed type of cancer in his pelvic region diagnosed in June 2011. 

Chavez travelled frequently to Cuba for chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the subsequent months. 

Following a nearly two-week absence from the public eye, Venezuela’s Congress on Tuesday gave him permission to return to the Communist-run island for additional medical treatment.

“Six months after I completed the last radiation therapy treatment, it has been recommended that I begin a special
treatment consisting of various sessions of hyperbaric oxygenation,” Chavez wrote in a letter to the legislature read by congressional leader Diosdado Cabello, a Chavez ally.

“Together with physical therapy, [this] will consolidate the process of strengthening my health.”

Hyperbaric oxygenation involves breathing pure oxygen while in a pressurised chamber, according to the American Cancer Society. Cabello made no mention of cancer.