Sonia Gandhi reveals two cancer battles in memoir

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has disclosed in her newly published memoir that she battled cancer twice, first breast cancer in 2010 and a pancreatic tumour a year later. In the 526-page book 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', she writes that she chose to undergo surgery in Italy's European Institute of Oncology near Milan rather than at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital because she wanted to keep her illness private from the media.

Doctors removed two tumours during the 2010 surgery and performed intra-operative radiation, sparing her five weeks of radiotherapy. A follow-up scan a year later revealed a growth in her pancreas. After consulting multiple doctors, she was operated on at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, by pancreatic surgeon Dr Casper van Eijk. Only then-prime minister Manmohan Singh and a few senior aides were informed of the second surgery. She recounts that she was 'fortunate' the tumour was caught at a pre-cancerous stage. The memoir also describes her fainting during a 2016 Varanasi rally, after which she required shoulder surgery.