Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong diagnosed with prostate cancer

SINGAPORE: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will undergo a surgery tomorrow.

The robot-assisted keyhole prostatectomy will be carried out by Professor Christopher Cheng, the lead urologist at the Singapore General Hospital, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement today.

The Prime Minister decided on the surgical treatment option on the advice of a panel of doctors led by Cheng. The decision was taken after an MRI on Lee's prostate, performed in January, showed suspicious lesions, and a subsequent biopsy found that one out of 38 samples contained cancer cells.

Lee is expected to recover fully, the statement said. It cited data from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre that shows patients with a similar medical profile and treatment have a cancer-specific survival rate of 99 per cent at 15 years.

The Prime Minister will be on medical leave for one week during which Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean will be acting Prime Minister.

In a Facebook post, Teo wished Lee a speedy recovery. Prostate cancer, which forms in the tissues of the prostate - a gland in the male reproductive system below the bladder - is the third most common cancer among Singaporean men, online Straits Times reported.

It is usually treated through radiation therapy, hormone therapy, surgery and chemotherapy.