MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula back home from larynx surgery

Lula will be the oldest-ever head of state after his Jan. 1 inauguration

Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been discharged from the Hospital Sírio Libanês in São Paulo after undergoing larynx surgery Sunday for a lesion in his left vocal cord.

Lula, 77, underwent a laryngoplasty to remove a lesion in his larynx detected in recent medical examinations. The Workers' Party (PT) leader was diagnosed with larynx cancer in 2011, from which he recovered the following year.

“Good morning. Already at home, after a small procedure yesterday. Everything resolved well. Good week to all,” Lula said on his Twitter account.

A leukoplakia, a white plaque that appears on the mucous membranes and sometimes turns cancerous, was detected on his left vocal cord before his trip to Egypt last week to attend the United Nations climate summit.

“The procedure showed absence of neoplasia,” the Syrian-Lebanese hospital said in a statement, thus ruling out tumors due to abnormal cell growth.

According to local media, Lula will remain resting at home with no public agenda. The larynx lesion removed this weekend had been detected in routine medical checkups the previous Saturday, after a months-long presidential campaign effort in which his voice had generated concerns after bouts of aphonia.

Lula's team confirmed the test results were “normal,” which showed a “complete remission” of the larynx tumor detected in 2011. The former two-time president had been a heavy smoker for 50 years. He quit in 2010, after a hospitalization for hypertension. The cancer was detected at the end of his presidency (2003-2011). In 2012, doctors announced his “full recovery” after chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments. Lula will be the oldest-ever head of state after his Jan. 1 inauguration.