New Delhi: US President Joe Biden, 80, had a cancerous skin lesion successfully removed from his chest in February, his doctor said Friday. The lesion, detected during a routine medical examination, was a basal cell carcinoma, which “do not tend to ‘spread’ or metastasize,” Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said in a report made public by the White House, adding that “no further treatment is required.”
The lesion was removed during Biden’s annual medical checkup on February 16, after which the president was declared “fit for duty,” news agency AFP reported.
“The site of the biopsy has healed nicely and the president will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare,” O’Connor said in the Friday report.
He noted that basal cell carcinoma was generally more innocuous than “more serious skin cancers such as melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma.”
“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those of as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” O’Connor, said in February following Biden’s medical examination.