After Labor lost the last state election in 2012, former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is now battling cancer. The 52-year-old politician was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after a tumour was removed from her neck at the St Vincent Hospital in Sydney last week.

The biopsy said the tumour is cancerous. There are about 4,700 new diagnoses of non-Hodgkin lymphoma yearly in Australia. The Cancer Council Australia said that people who are aged 85 have one in 42 chances of being diagnosed with the ailment.

However, people diagnosed with the disease have a survival rate of 71 per cent after five years, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said, but added individual circumstances vary per patient.

Ms Bligh said she will under further tests and is preparing to undergo treatment.

When news of her ailment was known, Labor members extended their support for the former premier.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard wished her a speedy recovery, while Treasurer Wayne Swan said the ex-MP is a tough woman. Andrew Fraser, former deputy premier of Queensland, said Ms Bligh is "capable of overcoming adversity and doing so with good humour and optimism."

Labor MP Curtis Pitt encouraged Ms Blight to fight, citing her father's battle with the same ailment and victory.

Ms Bligh was initially appointed deputy premier to Peter Beattie in 2005 and became premier in 2007. She won the 2009 Queensland election, becoming Australia's first popularly elected female premier.

Although she was widely supported for how she handled the state floods in 2011, she lost the 2012 election when the Liberal National Party won in a landslide victory.

After the party's loss, Ms Bligh quit her post as MP for 17 years and moved to Sydney, but recently went back to Brisbane to attend the investigation into the troubled Queensland Health payroll system.