Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has thyroid cancer and will go under surgery on Jan. 4 and then take 20 days of medical leave, her spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro said Tuesday night.

Fernandez, 58, who two weeks ago began her second term after winning reelection in October, was found to have cancer "on the right lobe of the thyroid gland" during a routine medical examination, Scoccimarro added.

The president will undergo surgery on Jan. 4 at the Hospital Austral in Pilar, 55 kilometers north of Buenos Aires.

She will take 20 days of medical leave, during which Vice President Amado Boudou will run the country, Scoccimarro said.

Doctors said the cancer hadn't metastasized or affected her lymph nodes, according to the spokesman.

And the U.S. National Institutes of Health said this kind of thyroid cancer is highly survivable, with more than 95 percent of patients living at least 10 years after detection.

Fernandez will keep up her normal routine and will appear at two events on Wednesday morning as planned, according to the spokesman.

Presidential doctors Luis Buonomo and Marcelo Ballesteros said the operation will be led by Dr. Pedro Sacco, chief of the surgery department at Hospital Austral.

Fernandez was also found to be suffering from low blood pressure and her health was questioned during 2010 and early this year after she canceled trips abroad.

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