Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will undergo radiotherapy for cancer in the United States .

Archbishop Tutu said in a statement on 19 March, that after consulting medical specialists in the US and Cape Town, he had decided on a combination of hormone treatment and radiotherapy.

"I have now been advised that the cancer is suspected to have penetrated beyond the prostrate gland, and that as a result radiotherapy is the best option". He told reporters this week that he was "feeling good".

The former archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel Peace Prize winner had most of his prostrate gland removed during surgery in Cape Town in January this year. On a recent trip to New York and Baltimore in the US, he sought further medical opinion.

Today, 20 March, he is to start a three-month course of hormone treatment, to be followed by two months of radiotherapy at a US clinic.

Until he goes to the US, Archbishop Tutu will keep a "normal schedule" as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission travels throughout South Africa to hear accounts of gross human rights violations committed during the apartheid era.