MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine VP Cristina Kirchner to undergo surgery

CFK's mother had also undergone a hysterectomy

Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will be operated Thursday at the Otamendi Sanatorium in Buenos Aires, it was announced.

Medical sources have explained it will be a preventive hysterectomy, which will require the patient to stay hospitalized between three and five days after the surgery.

It is a scheduled procedure that entails no medical emergency, it was reported. If everything goes as planned, CFK is to be discharged from hospital in time for the Nov. 14 mid-term elections.

The former President is to be admitted at 6 am at the sanatorium and the precedure is to start at the earliest time possible, Clarín reported.

Hysterectomy is a surgical procedure in which the uterus is removed, and eventually the ovaries and fallopian tubes as well. The usual causes for which this type of surgery is usually done can be benign or malignant: thickening of the endometrium, endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain, presence of fibroids or the detection of cancer in any of the areas of the uterus or fallopian tubes.

In the case of CFK, the medical reasons for the procedure were not disclosed. However, in January 2014, and after a biopsy showed endometrial cancer, CFK's mother, Ofelia Wilhelm, had undergone a similar operation, also at the Otamendi Sanatorium.

On Oct. 2, CFK had undergone routine check-ups, which according to her spokespersons had come out normal, but it is believed now that it was not quite so. The surgery was planned under the utmost secrecy ntil Wednesday evening.