Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, has announced that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
In a statement, Carter said: "Recent liver surgery revealed that I have cancer that is now in other parts of my body." He is 90 years old.
Carter had liver surgery to remove what was called a small mass on his liver on Aug. 3. At the time, his office said that his prognosis was "excellent." His health has been overall good for a man of his age, but he was forced to cut short a trip to Guyana in May because he was feeling ill.
"I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare. A more complete public statement will be made when facts are known, possibly next week," he said in the statement.
Carter has been extremely active since he left the White House in 1975 after one term in the presidency. He set up the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization, in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights. The center works to promote democracy around the world and eradicate diseases such as guinea worm disease, river blindness, malaria, and other conditions. A major accomplishment of his center is reducing the number of cases of Guinea worm by 99%.
He has also traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations such as Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Additionally, Carter has actively worked in the Habitat for Humanity project. Some presidential scholars say they consider his activity after his presidency to be as or more important than his presidency.
Carter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, one of only four U.S. presidents and the only former presidents to do so.
Before his presidency, Jimmy Carter served as governor of Georgia and was a peanut farmer.
