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Saturday, October 06, 2012

Colombian president to leave hospital on Saturday - doctors

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be released from the hospital on Saturday following surgery for prostate cancer that has not spread beyond the gland, his medical team said.

Santos, 61, said on Monday that doctors had discovered a tumour on his prostate. The cancer announcement came two weeks before his government was about to start peace talks with Marxist rebels.

"The definitive pathology result now available shows that the tumour was confined to the prostate gland. The nodes were negative, which is great news," Adolfo Llinas, director of Fundacion Santa Fe hospital, told reporters on Friday.

He said the president would leave the hospital on Saturday morning.

Santos will not require chemotherapy, his doctors have said, and a complete recovery will likely take up to three weeks. During that time, his ability to travel will be limited.

(Reporting by Eduardo Garcia and Jack Kimball; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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