Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday he was returning to Cuba for another round of radiation treatment in his battle with cancer, which resurfaced earlier this year.

“I will return in the next few hours to Havana,” he told television here. “We are in the home stretch of my radiation treatment.”

Mr Chavez’s cancer, first detected in his pelvic area in June 2011, was found to have recurred in February.

Since surgery to remove the new lesion, he has undergone repeated rounds of treatment in Cuba, and most recently returned from Havana on Thursday.

The 57-year-old Mr Chavez, who insists he will run for a third six-year term in the October 7 election, never has publicly revealed the kind of cancer from which he suffers or its exact location.

The visible face of the international left in Latin America, he is running for re-election against centre-left opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda.