President Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest during his annual physical last month, the White House revealed Friday — the latest health issue to befall the commander-in-chief as he readies a likely re-election campaign.
Biden physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor noted that the tissue was removed during the 80-year-old president’s checkup Feb. 16 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.
“[T]he President had a skin lesion removed from his chest as part of his comprehensive health assessment,” wrote O’Connor, who gave Biden a clean bill of health in a five-page written report released following the exam — but was not made available for questions from the press.
“The tissue was sent for traditional biopsy. As expected, the biopsy confirmed that the small lesion was basal cell carcinoma,” O’Connor added. “All cancerous tissue was successfully removed … No further treatment is required.”
“Basal cell carcinoma lesions do not tend to ‘spread’ or metastasize, as some more serious skin cancers such as melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma are known to do,” the doctor went on. “They do, however, have the potential to increase in size.”
“The site of the biopsy has healed nicely and the President will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare.”
In his initial report, O’Connor noted that Biden “did spend a good deal of time in the sun in his youth” and had “several localized, non-melanoma skin cancers” removed before becoming president.
At Biden’s previous physical, which took place in November 2021, the president underwent a colonoscopy requiring anesthesia — forcing him to hand off executive power to Vice President Kamala Harris for 85 minutes.
O’Connor noted in a follow-up report that a benign, slow-growing but potentially precancerous lesion had been excised from Biden’s colon during that procedure.
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