US President Biden had cancerous skin lesion removed successfully

United States President Joe Biden, 80, had a cancerous skin lesion successfully removed from his chest in February, his doctor has revealed.

The lesion, detected during a routine medical examination, was a basal cell carcinoma, which “do not tend to ‘spread’ or metastasize,” Biden’s physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor, said in a report made public by the White House on Friday.

O’Connor, the White House doctor who has served as Biden’s longtime physician, said “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed”.

“No further treatment is required,” he said in the report.

Biden, the oldest person ever to be US president, is expected to declare he is running for re-election in 2024 and his health is under scrutiny. His wife Jill Biden has said Biden plans to run, although a formal declaration of the president’s intentions has yet to be made.

The lesion was removed during Biden’s annual medical checkup on February 16 after which the president was declared “fit for duty”, according to the report released on Friday. At the February appointment, Biden completed a series of tests that he began last year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a complex in Washington, DC’s suburbs with a presidential facility.

O’Connor wrote at the time that the president had spent “a good deal of time in the sun in his youth” and that he had already been treated regularly for removal of localised, non-melanoma skin cancers.

“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 Friday’s report.

“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.

Basal cell carcinoma is a slow-growing cancer that is usually confined to the surface of the skin. Doctors can almost always remove it all with a shallow incision and it seldom causes serious complications or becomes life-threatening. Basal cells are among the most common and easily-treated forms of cancer, especially when caught early.

The Bidens have long been advocates for fighting cancer. Their adult son Beau died in 2015 from brain cancer.