Adele has minor throat surgery at hospital in America

Image source, Reuters

Image caption, Adele was forced to cancel concerts for the rest of 2011 to have surgery

Adele has had throat surgery to stop an ongoing condition that caused her to cancel tour dates for the rest of the year.

A spokesman for Massachusetts General Hospital in the US says she had vocal cord microsurgery to stop bleeding from a benign polyp.

The condition is usually the result of unstable blood vessels in the vocal cord that can rupture.

Columbia Records announced last month that she would be having surgery.

The hospital says the 23-year-old Grammy winner went to Boston to undergo the surgery with Dr Steven Zeitels, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Centre.

Adele is expected to make a full recovery from the laser microsurgery.

She was forced to cancel tour dates in America in October, as well as six gigs in the UK.

Doctors told the 23-year-old to rest her voice and scrap all her promotional appearances for the rest of the year.

Adele, whose second album 21 is the biggest selling of the year so far in the UK and US, has struggled with illness since the summer.

In July the singer told Radio 1 she had the "all-clear" from a problem which saw her cancel a US tour in June.

In September the beginning of her UK tour was delayed due to a "severe chest infection".

Last month the singer was forced to deny rumours on microblogging site Twitter that she had throat cancer.