MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula receives preventive radiotherapy against skin cancer four months before Brazilian elections

The president's medical team informed the Brazilian press that the procedure will not affect the presidential agenda

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday began a preventive radiotherapy treatment following the removal of a cancerous lesion from his scalp, in a medical intervention that places the spotlight on the health of the 80-year-old leader four months before the presidential elections in which he will seek a fourth term. The Sirio-Libanés Hospital, the private center where Lula receives care, confirmed the start of the treatment through a medical bulletin released mid-morning in Brasilia.

According to the communiqué, the treatment consists of fifteen superficial preventive radiotherapy sessions of the scalp, of two minutes each, distributed over three weeks, and is applied following the removal of a basal cell lesion carried out on 24 April. The president's medical team informed the Brazilian press that the procedure will not affect the presidential agenda. Lula continued his working day on Monday with a public event alongside Brazilian and African university rectors. The Panama hat the president has worn at public events over the past month had been, until now, the most visible sign of the previous intervention.

The lesion removed in April was identified by the president's personal physician as a basal cell carcinoma, the most common and least aggressive type of skin cancer, with no evidence of metastasis. Lula had already been treated in 2011 for laryngeal cancer, shortly after the end of his second presidential term. During his current third term, which began in January 2023, the president has undergone surgery on several occasions: an operation for a laryngeal nodule in 2022, the placement of a hip prosthesis in 2023, a cataract intervention in his left eye in 2026, a cosmetic eyelid touch-up, and a hand infiltration for tendinitis. The most serious episode took place in December 2024, when he suffered a brain hemorrhage stemming from a domestic fall that required emergency transfer from Brasilia to São Paulo for urgent surgery.

The treatment comes at a politically sensitive moment. Lula has publicly expressed his intention to seek reelection in the general elections of 4 October, with a possible runoff on 25 October. The president will turn 81 two days after the runoff and would be 85 at the end of the term. Polls give him a slight edge over the main right-wing contender, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, currently held under humanitarian house arrest after the 27-year prison sentence he received in November for leading a coup conspiracy against the 2022 electoral result.

Initially, Lula had stated that his third term would be his last. However, over the past year the leader explicitly indicated his decision to run for reelection, a position he confirmed last month in an interview with the newspaper El País.