Apple co-founder has chronic health issues

PARIS: Steve Jobs, who announced on Wednesday that he would step down from the helm at Apple, has a long history of poor health, entailing two major operations in the past seven years and occasional absences that have sparked furious speculation.

In August 2004, Jobs said he had had surgery for pancreatic cancer, a disease that leads in the vast majority of cases to a swift death, sometimes within a few months of diagnosis.

"The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months," Jobs confided to a stunned audience at Stanford University, California, in 2005.

"My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.

"It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes."

In 95 percent of cases, pancreatic cancer affects a part of the organ called the exocrine glands, which secrete enzymes necessary for digestion.

But in Jobs's case, the diagnosis was more favourable, as the cancer was located on the pancreas' endocrine glands, which disburse hormones such as insulin, which controls blood-sugar levels.

Tumours there are slow to spread, and with high probabilities of survival after five years, the benchmark for cancer remission.

In 2008, Jobs suffered a visible loss in weight, which he attributed to a simple hormone imbalance.

In 2009, he took a lengthy leave for a liver transplant, a heavy-duty operation that requires lifelong taking of drugs to prevent tissue rejection and, because it suppresses the immune system, leaves the body more exposed to opportune infection.

On January 17 this year, he began another spell of medical leave, "so I can focus on my health."

Jobs, 56, has always been silent about health details, leaving it unclear whether the latest problems could be linked to failure of the liver transplant, to a spread of the cancer or indeed to some other issue. (AFP)