BOGOTA, Colombia _ Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will travel to the United States Wednesday for a medical visit amid fears that his prostate cancer has returned. The trip comes at a sensitive time, as the administration is trying to win approval for a modified peace deal with the country's largest guerrilla group.
In a brief statement from Bogota's Santa Fe Hospital, Santos, 65, said the news that his cancer may have returned had caught him by "surprise." He first acknowledged having cancer in October, 2012, when he said a "small tumor" had been removed during surgery.
Adolfo Llinas, the head of the medical center, said that Santos had come in for a routine check-up when doctors found elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, a protein used to track prostate cancer.
Llinas said Santos would travel to the Johns Hopkins cancer center in Baltimore for additional tests not available in this Andean nation.
"When we know the results of all the studies and define a course of treatment, the president has asked us to let the public know," Llinas said.
Santos said he will travel on Wednesday, have the tests on Thursday and return to the country on Friday. He said he hoped to take advantage of the trip to attend an event at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington and host a dinner for Vice President Joe Biden.
The trip comes just days after Santos announced that his negotiators had hammered out a modified peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas.
The initial deal had been narrowly rejected during an Oct. 2 plebiscite, in part due to fears that it was too lenient on guerrilla commanders. But negotiators signed a new deal on Saturday, saying that it incorporated revisions made by critics.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said the administration is deciding if it will put the new deal to a vote or ratify it in congress.
